Appeals court affirms ruling in Bausch Health-Norwich patent fight

Salix Pharmaceuticals and Bausch Health Ireland appealed from a final judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware holding claim 2 of U.S. Patent 8,309,569, claim 3 of U.S. Patent 10,765,667, claim 4 of U.S. Patent 7,612,199, and claim 36 of U.S. Patent 7,902,206 invalid as obvious. Norwich Pharmaceuticals cross-appealed from an order that issued after the district court concluded that Norwich infringed claim 8 of U.S. Patent 8,624,573, claim 6 of U.S. Patent 9,421,195, and claims 11 and 12 of U.S. Patent 10,335,397 and had failed to prove that those claims were invalid. In an order dated April 11, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit stated: “For the following reasons, we affirm… We accordingly affirm the district court’s determination that Norwich established that the IBS-D claims would have been obvious in view of the Protocol and Pimentel… We therefore affirm the district court’s order setting the effective approval date of Norwich’s ANDA No. 214369 to be no earlier than the date of expiration of the last to expire of the HE patents… We have considered both parties remaining arguments and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm (1) the district court’s holding that claim 2 of the ‘569 patent, claim 3 of the ‘667 patent, claim 4 of the ‘199 patent, and claim 36 of the ‘206 patent would have been invalid as obvious, (2) the district court’s order setting the effective approval date of Norwich’s ANDA to be no earlier than the date of expiration of the last to expire of the HE patents, and (3) the district court’s denial of the motion to modify the final judgment.”