Medicines Company gets patent reprieve
The U.S. Solicitor General has decided not to appeal "at this time" a district court's Aug. 3 decision that ordered the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to consider The Medicines Company had filed a timely application for patent term extension of Angiomax (bivalirudin).
On Aug. 6, the PTO granted a one-year interim extension of the Angiomax patent.
On August 19, APP Pharmaceuticals, which seeks to make a generic brand of bivalirudin, filed a motion to intervene in this matter. The court has yet to hear that motion.
The patent in question is No. 5,196,404, the principal U.S. patent that covers Angiomax.