Article

Understanding Legal Trends in the Life Sciences Industry

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Leading Lawyers on Complying with Regulatory Changes and Keeping Abreast of Supreme Court Decisions

In this book, “Understanding Legal Trends in the Life Sciences Industry,” his chapter discusses the current challenges and concerns with life sciences intellectual property. His chapter is available as a complimentary PDF.

From an intellectual property (IP) perspective, the legal issues in the life sciences industry are many. Probably the most important current question is what can and cannot be patented. A secondary topic of interest is what can and cannot be agreed to in settlement of the major IP cases in life sciences namely, cases under the Hatch Waxman Act between branded and generic pharmaceutical companies. The former touches every patent case in the life sciences from beginning to end; while the latter emerges from the settlement of a patent case and has consequences in antitrust, qui tam, and enforcement litigation.