Friday, December 14, 2012

"PAY-FOR-DELAY" DRUG SETTLEMENTS ANTITRUST VIOLATIONS?: Update by Antitrust and Business Attorney Charles Jerome Ware

Attorney Charles Jerome Ware is renowned and consistently ranked among the best attorneys and legal counsellors in the United States. [GQ Magazine, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Columbia Flier, USA TODAY, The Howard County Sun, The Anniston Star, The New York Times, et al.]
www.CharlesJeromeWare.com

Among other positions held, Attorney Ware is a former Federal Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), Senior Antitrust Trial Attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Special Assistant to the Direct of the Bureau of Competition for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Special Counsel to the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) Will Review Whether Reverse Payment ("Pay-For-Delay") Settlements Are Antitrust Violations:
Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc., U.S., Docket No. 12-416, review granted 12/07/2012.

On December 7th, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari on the question: Whether a Reverse Payment ("Pay-For-Delay") settlement, in which a patent-owning brand name drug manufacturer pays a generic maker to cease its patent validity challenge in court (during the litigation), violates federal antitrust laws.

[BloombergBNA, www.bna.com/Monday, December 10th, 2012/ "Supreme Court Will Review Whether Reverse Payment Settlements Are Antitrust Violations"]

Another way of outlining the key issue in this case is as follows: Whether reverse-payment agreements are per se lawful unless the underlying patent litigation was a sham or the patent was obtained by fraud (as the below court held), or instead are presumptively anti-competitive and unlawful (as the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has held).

[Justice Alito has recused himself from participating in this appeal. This appeal comes to the Supreme Court from the Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. See, www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/ Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.]

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