Justia Drugs & Biotech Opinion Summaries

Syngenta sued Willowood, a Hong Kong company that sells fungicide to its Oregon-based affiliate, for infringement of patents directed to a fungicide compound and its manufacturing processes and infringement of copyrights for detailed product labels that provide directions for use, storage, and disposal, plus first-aid instructions and environmental, physical, and chemical hazard warnings. The district court dismissed the copyright claims as precluded by the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), 7 U.S.C. 135 and granted-in-part Syngenta’s summary judgment motion with respect to patent infringement. After a jury trial, the court entered a defense judgment on the patent claims. The Federal Circuit affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-part, and vacated in part. The district court did not provide an adequate analysis of the potential conflict between FIFRA and the Copyright Act. Because FIFRA does not, on its face, require a “me-too” registrant to copy the label of a registered product, FIFRA only conflicts with the Copyright Act to the extent that some particular element of Syngenta’s label is both protected under copyright doctrines and necessary for the expedited approval of Willowood’s generic pesticide. The court erred by imposing a single-entity requirement on the performance of a patented process under 35 U.S.C. 271(g); practicing a patented process abroad does not trigger liability under section 271(g) in the same manner that practicing a patented process domestically does under section 271(a). View "Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC v. Willowood, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, engaged in treatment and disposal of regulated biomedical waste, had trouble with its shredder and obtained approval from the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board to use autoclaves. After a few years, an inspector recommended that plaintiff's facility be shut down and ordered a landfill to stop accepting plaintiff's waste. Unable to resolve the matter with EQB, plaintiff sought a federal court injunction. The injunctions were denied, but plaintiff resumed handling waste. When a second shredder broke, an inspector again ordered the landfill to stop accepting waste and rejected several proposals for dealing with accumulated waste. Plaintiff's suit alleges more favorable treatment of a competitor and other constitutional violations. The district court dismissed for failure to link allegations to any particular defendant. The First Circuit affirmed, finding failure to meet minimal pleading standards. The complaint failed the plausibility test "spectacularly." View "Redondo Waste Sys., Inc.v. Lopez-Freytes" on Justia Law