Fish & Richardson was all over the map last year, with appearances in 222 new patent cases in federal courts across the United States, plus a major U.S. Supreme Court win and successful litigation at the International Trade Commission (ITC). The firm also scored two key victories in cases involving the Hatch-Waxman Act, the federal law governing the procedure for bringing generic drugs to market.
Long-term ties with the Mayo Clinic culminated in March’s Supreme Court win in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories Inc. In a 9-0 decision by Justice Stephen Breyer, the Court determined that two patents on Prometheus’ diagnostic test used in the treatment of autoimmune diseases were invalid and not patent-eligible. He wrote that upholding the patents “would risk disproportionately tying up the use of the underlying natural laws.”
