Janssen Pharmaceutica N v. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals., Inc.

456 F. Supp. 2d 644, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74582
CourtDistrict Court, D. New Jersey
DecidedOctober 13, 2006
DocketCivil Action 03-6220 (JCL), 03-6185(JCL)
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 456 F. Supp. 2d 644 (Janssen Pharmaceutica N v. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals., Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Janssen Pharmaceutica N v. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals., Inc., 456 F. Supp. 2d 644, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74582 (D.N.J. 2006).

Opinion

OPINION

LIFLAND, District Judge.

I. Introduction

Plaintiffs, Janssen Pharmaceutica, N.V., a Belgian corporation, and its New Jersey-based subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceutica, L.P. (collectively “Janssen”), are the inventors and producers of risperidone, the active ingredient in Janssen’s successful drug for the treatment of schizophrenia, Risperdal. It is perhaps an understatement to describe Risperdal as merely “successful.” The drug has been described by the American Chemical Society as “a standard in the treatment of psychosis, revolutionizing anti-psychotic treatments.” Pl.’s Ex. (“PX”) 309. In 2005 alone, Risperdal accounted for over $3 billion in worldwide sales for Janssen’s parent company, Johnson & Johnson. Vergis Tr. 78:9-16.

Defendants, Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Mylan”), a West Virginia corporation, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Ltd., an Indian corporation, and its New Jersey-based subsidiary, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Inc. (collectively, “DRL”), are drug manufacturers seeking to market a generic version of risperidone. Janssen filed this suit claiming infringement of its U.S. Patent No. 4,804,663 (“the '663 patent”), which claims risperidone, among other chemical compounds. Mylan and DRL concede they have infringed the '663 patent; they counter, however, that the '663 patent is invalid due to obviousness, and alternatively, Mylan argues that the '663 patent is unenforceable due to Janssen’s alleged inequitable conduct.

The parties tried the case before the Court from June 28, 2006 through June 30, 2006 and on July 5, 2006. Thereafter, they submitted proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. The parties’ submissions and the record evidence have been carefully considered. For the reasons set forth below, 1 the Court finds that Mylan and DRL have failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the '663 patent is obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), and that Mylan has failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Janssen engaged in inequitable conduct. Thus, the '663 pat *648 ent is neither invalid nor unenforceable, and as a result, Mylan and DRL have infringed that patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(2).

II. Background

A. The '663 Patent

On February 14, 1989, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) issued the '663 patent to its inventors Ludo E.J. Kennis and Jan Vandenberk and as-signee, Janssen. PX 1. The '663 patent originated from a patent application filed with the PTO on March 27, 1985. Stipulations of Fact (“SF”) 14-15; PX 1.

The '663 patent’s 18 claims encompass compounds “having useful antipsychotic properties and being useful in the treatment of a variety of complaints in which serotonin release is of predominant importance.” PX 1. Among those compounds are risperidone and compound 11, which are included in each of the patent’s 18 claims. 2 SF-17. There is no claim in the '663 patent in which risperidone is the only compound. PX 1; Wolff Tr. 546:1-10.

The compounds claimed in the '663 patent were the result of Janssen’s efforts to invent an effective antipsychotic drug, with few side effects, for the treatment of Schizophrenia. Tamminga Tr. 53:4-22.

B. Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a debilitating disease of the brain characterized by hallucinations, delusions and other symptoms that impair a person’s capacity for thought, attention, memory, emotion and social functioning. Tamminga Tr. 46:19-47:1. Despite much research, the cause, mechanism, and etiology of the disease remain unknown. Tam-minga Tr. 47:2-3.

People who suffer from schizophrenia exhibit a wide array of symptoms that can be classified into three major categories: positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and cognitive symptoms. Tamminga Tr. 47:4-7.

Positive symptoms include extreme hallucinations and paranoid delusions. Hallucinations are auditory, visual or both. Schizophrenics do not just hear voices in their mind, “they believe that there are people actually talking to them.” Tam-minga Tr. 47:8-16. In addition, schizophrenics believe in the false realities created by their delusions, sometimes causing the delusions to take over their lives. Id. at 47:17-18.

Negative symptoms include the complete loss of all emotion and lack of spontaneous thought, both of which “result in a loss of social skills and really an entire loss of social functioning.” Tamminga Tr. 47:19-24.

Cognitive symptoms include the impairment of memory and attention. These cognitive deficits cause schizophrenics to become unable to use information and to have great difficulty making decisions. Tamminga Tr. 47:25-48:4.

These symptoms can entirely take over the lives of persons with schizophrenia, preventing them from working or developing social networks. Less than 20 percent of schizophrenics have jobs, less than 15 percent ever marry, and approximately 10 percent eventually commit suicide. Tam-minga Tr. 48:5-15.

*649 C. Early Treatments

Schizophrenia is a disease as old as mankind. For most of that time, there were no effective medical treatments. The only option was compassionate care, placing schizophrenics into protected environments such as government hospitals that quickly became overcrowded. But compassionate care did nothing to treat the symptoms and the patients did not get better. Tamminga Tr. 48:18-49:2.

Beginning in the 1930s, doctors attempted medical treatments. These treatments included induced fever, electroconvulsive shock therapy and frontal lobotomy. None of these attempts to treat the disease was effective. To the contrary, these treatments could even worsen the symptoms of schizophrenia. Tamminga Tr. 49:3-12.

D. First Generation, “Typical” Anti-psychotic Drugs

The lack of effective treatment options continued into the 1950s. Then, for the first time, doctors developed an antipsy-chotic drug to treat schizophrenia, called chlorpromazine. Tamminga Tr. 49:13-18. The discovery that chlorpromazine could treat some symptoms of schizophrenia was accidental. Physicians were testing chlor-promazine as a sedative when they noticed that chlorpromazine significantly reduced the hallucinations and delusions of their schizophrenic patients. Tamminga Tr. 49:19-25.

As the first pharmaceutical treatment for schizophrenia, chlorpromazine was rapidly adopted for use throughout the medical community. Pharmaceutical companies quickly began searching for similar drugs. This led to the development of new antipsychotics such as Janssen’s haloperi-dol, marketed under the trade name, Hal-dol. Chlorpromazine, haloperidol, and other similar drugs became known as first generation, or typical, antipsychotics. Tamminga Tr. 50:12-16, 21-25.

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456 F. Supp. 2d 644, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74582, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/janssen-pharmaceutica-n-v-v-mylan-pharmaceuticals-inc-njd-2006.