Husch Blackwell prevailed before the Federal Circuit on behalf of client Flatwing Pharmaceuticals in connection with an appeal lodged by Anacor Pharmaceuticals, a unit of Pfizer Inc, concerning a series of inter partes reviews (IPRs) that resulted in several Anacor patents being found unpatentable due to obviousness. The patents-in-suit attempt to patent compounds that are useful for the treatment of fungal infections.
In July 2019 the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) handed down a series of Final Written Decisions that gave FlatWing a string of victories. FlatWing had filed four IPR petitions for challenging multiple Anacor Pharmaceuticals patents. In each instance, PTAB returned a decision that invalidated the patent-in-suit. In sum, our team demonstrated that 39 separate claims found in four different patents were “unpatentable as obvious over the cited prior art.”
The Federal Circuit affirmed PTAB’s determination, writing that “[w]e have considered Anacor’s further arguments but find them unpersuasive.”
The Husch Blackwell team was led by Marc Wezowski and Philip Segrest and included Eric Rakestraw.