Sanofi Can Thank Thomas Edison And Samuel Morse For IP Win

Director Will Milliken was quoted in the article “Sanofi Can Thank Thomas Edison And Samuel Morse For IP Win,” published by The National Law Journal. Will provided the following commentary on the Supreme Court affirming the Federal Circuit’s ruling that the Amgen patent claims at issue are not enabled:

“The ruling, though perhaps unwelcome news to patent owners, is not necessarily a bombshell for the patent world, said Will Milliken, the co-chair of the appellate practice at the intellectual property boutique Sterne Kessler.

“I don’t think that this decision signals a sea change in the law for patent practitioners because, at least at a high level, it means that the law is basically what the Federal Circuit has been saying the law is,” he said.

Still, Milliken found the sources of authority that Gorsuch relied on in his opinion to be notable.

“Rather than use precedents in antibody cases, or even in biotech cases like maybe from more recent Federal Circuit decisions, the Supreme Court went back and based its reasoning on its own enablement decisions, which are all quite old and deal with very different technology areas,” he said. “It’s also another example of the Supreme Court in patent cases going back to the first principles that it laid down maybe in the 1800s and not caring so much about the way that the doctrine may or may not have developed in the lower courts in the more modern era.””