New Orleans federal district court judge Eldon Fallon knows how to manage mass torts. He's the judge, after all, who oversaw the $4.85 billion settlement of Vioxx claims against Merck in 2007. So when he said he was ready to start trying some of the 600 cases alleging that Chinese drywall emits dangerous sulfur, our ears pricked up. Is this another mass settlement in the making?

As we concluded in a post last week, no one really knows whether IP litigation is up or down. But one subset of IP litigation seems to be thriving: the wars between drug manufacturers and generics. We've got news to report in a six-year-old battle between Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo and generic maker Apotex. In an opinion made public Tuesday, a New Jersey district court dismissed with prejudice Apotex's antitrust claims against Daiichi.