Apotex v. FDA, No. 06-5105 (D.C. Cir. June 6, 2006)By Aaron Barkoff of the Orange Book Blog,
Apotex had challenged the FDA rule on the basis that it was inconsistent with the D.C. Circuit’s holdings in two prior cases. In those cases, the court found that FDA’s rationale for the rule–that the FDA has insufficient resources to inquire into the legal effects of settlements, such as estoppel, that lead to dismissals–was not adequately justified.
Now, however, the D.C. Circuit has upheld FDA’s rule–largely because the FDA offered a better justification this time around. According to the court, “FDA is indisputably correct that equitable estoppel in the patent law context rarely presents pure issues of law amenable to easy resolution. . . . We have little doubt that applying this standard would force FDA, an agency lacking patent law expertise, to resolve borderline questions about the estoppel effects of patent-holder declarations.” The court continued:
As FDA sees it, the uncertainty inherent in an estoppel-based inquiry would lead to two inter-related problems, neither of which relates to the drain-on-resources rationale set forth [previously]. First, FDA believes that the uncertainty would “undermine marketplace certainty and interfere with business planning and investment.” And second, FDA worries that forcing it to parse court decisions will invite fruitless litigation from generic drug manufacturers seeking to trigger, or to avoid triggering, exclusivity periods.
The D.C. Circuit concluded: “In our view, these perfectly reasonable propositions adequately support FDA’s position that an estoppel-based approach to the court decision trigger is ill-advised.”
Dennis Crouch’s Comment: I asked Aaron to write this short review of the Apotex case for Patently-O. He has the primary documents and much more detail at his site, the Orange Book Blog.