Practices

Life Sciences IP Litigation

In Depth

Breakthroughs happen with Cooley. At Cooley, we don’t just advise – we accelerate your achievements. Our collaborative approach draws upon unparalleled experience and our extensive industry network to drive strategic solutions and resolve challenges. With Cooley as your catalyst, you’re not just part of the life sciences industry – you’re shaping it.

Cooley’s life sciences IP litigation team brings decades of experience resolving high-stakes disputes in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device space, and continues to play an instrumental role in the growth of many of the industry’s most sophisticated companies. Our lawyers litigate matters involving complex technologies, such as pharmaceutical compounds, monoclonal antibodies, biotechnology, genetically engineered organisms, biofuels, diagnostics, and biomedical technologies, among others, across key jurisdictions, including district courts, the PTAB, the US International Trade Commission (ITC), the Federal Circuit, the US Supreme Court, and international arbitration forums.

We have significant experience representing branded pharmaceutical companies in Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) litigation, protecting billions of dollars in revenue. We also are well versed in the abbreviated biologics approval pathway under the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA). Cooley’s unmatched experience in litigation, patent prosecution, and FDA and regulatory counseling regarding biologic products enables us to provide sophisticated analysis and advice in this specialty area.

We partner with clients to protect their commercial interests in game-changing technologies that are changing the world. At the outset, we develop comprehensive technical analyses to map out a winning litigation strategy and focus on breaking down complex scientific concepts to educate and persuade judges and jurors in order to achieve our clients’ goals.

Our team includes litigators with doctorate, master’s and undergraduate degrees in fields such as biology, biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, chemical engineering, immunology, microbiology and molecular biology, among others. Many of our litigators also are members of the patent bar, and our litigation teams regularly draw from our 100-person+ life sciences patent counseling and prosecution team, which is one of the largest teams of its kind among any law firm in the US. Having such resources in house allows us to perform in-depth internal analyses and reduces the need for costly outside experts for many litigation tasks.

Areas of practice

  • Patent litigation
  • Patent office litigation
  • Hatch-Waxman litigation
  • Contractual and licensing disputes
  • Trade secret litigation
  • Section 337 ITC investigations

Representative matters:

  • Obtained a jury trial win for Sight Sciences against a key competitor resulting in $5.5 million in lost profits damages and royalty damages of $28.5 million – totaling $34 million
  • Successfully obtained a Final Written Decision for Liquidia Technologies from the PTAB invalidating all claims of United Therapeutics’ ʼ793 patent and a favorable judgment of invalidity and noninfringement regarding United Therapeutics’ ʼ066 patent
  • Defeated a competitor-versus-competitor patent infringement suit for Vifor (International) AG concerning its active pharmaceutical ingredient used in the production of Injectafer, an iron-carbohydrate complex used to treat anemia
  • Served as lead counsel for NeuroDerm and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation in a post-grant review challenging an AbbVie patent; the PTAB found all claims of AbbVie’s patent unpatentable in a Final Written Decision
  • Defeated an emergency motion for injunction pending appeal for Samsung Bioepis in an ongoing BPCIA litigation