Dunlap Codding Director Jordan Sigale Quoted in Bloomberg BNA re Patents
Jordan Sigale was quoted in “Stakeholders Agree with Fed. Cir.’s Discount of Severe Patent Exhaustion Consequences,” by Tony Dutra in the February 16 issue of Bloomberg BNA’s Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal. Dutra wrote, “The biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries received a win with the Federal Circuit majority opinion downplaying the concerns of high-tech sector and retaining its current standards on the reuse and resale of patented products. Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Impression Prods., Inc., No. 2014-1617 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 12, 2016).”
Dutra went on to say that the majority opinion expressed concern for the “likely disruption” in the drug industry should it change the standards. Sigale agreed with the court’s view and said, “In the absence of this rule, drug companies would presumably have to minimize the disparity in drug prices between the U.S. and non-U.S. markets….Whether that would result in a benefit to U.S. citizens or a detriment to the rest of the world is the subject of a PhD dissertation. More importantly for this court, basing any decision on that type of argument would seem more suited for Congress than the judiciary.”
Dutra wrote, “Sigale…noted that the decision here—sticking with existing standards, absent evidence of serious problems with them—”sounds a lot” like the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Kimble v. Marvel Entm’t, LLC. Sigale went on to observe that “non-exhaustion of U.S. patent rights based on a first foreign sale enjoys and long and un-varied history. And notwithstanding that history of non-exhaustion, doomsday predictions have not materialized.”