by Dennis Crouch
The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether to grant certiorari in Vanda Pharmaceuticals v. Teva Pharmaceuticals. I have been closely watching this obviousness case that could have significant implications beyond the pharmaceutical industry. The following essay provides an overview of the key legal issues at stake and introduces Teva's recent briefing.
The case centers on the proper legal standard for determining when an invention is "obvious" and therefore unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103. In particular, Vanda argues that the Federal Circuit has unduly raised the non-obviousness hurdle -- barring patents based upon a "mere reasonable expectation of success" or that certain experiments would have been obvious to try, even though the result was not known.
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