Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp v. Breckenridge Pharmaceutical, No. 17-2173 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 7, 2018)

From the Opinion

The passage below is extracted verbatim from the opening of the document. It has not been editorially summarized — consult the full opinion for the court's complete reasoning.

This case involves the complicated, potential double- patenting situation in which the later -filed of two related patents, which share a common specification and effective filing date , expires before the term of the earlier -filed patent due to an intervening change in law by Congress defining a patent’s term. When the patent owner filed for the first patent, the governing law defined the patent term as 17 years from the date the patent issued.