Fresh From the Bench: Latest Precedential Patent Cases

CASE OF THE WEEK

Wyeth LLC v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, Appeal No. 2024-2325 (Fed. Cir. July 9, 2026)

In our Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court ruling reversing a $107.5 million jury verdict against AstraZeneca in a case involving methods of treating drug-resistant lung cancer using “irreversible EGFR inhibitors.”  Wyeth’s patents required administering “daily to the patient” a “unit dosage” of a covered inhibitor, with the specification disclosing only three exemplary compounds supported solely by in vitro data, and no working examples of a dosage actually administered to patients.

Patentee Wyeth sued AstraZeneca in September 2021 based on AstraZeneca’s sale of its drug Tagrisso, and a jury ultimately awarded Wyeth $107.5 million.  AstraZeneca moved for JMOL, arguing the claims were invalid for lack of enablement because identifying a workable unit dosage was highly unpredictable and the disclosed ranges were too broad to guide a skilled artisan.  The district court granted JMOL, explaining that Wyeth’s specifications disclosed no working dosage examples, and that some disclosed doses would be toxic or even lethal based upon testimony from Wyeth’s own experts and the inventors.  The court held the claims invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as offering only “a starting point” requiring undue experimentation. READ MORE

ALSO THIS WEEK

Intellectual Pixels Ltd. v. Sony Interactive Entm’t LLC, Appeal No. 2024-2174 (Fed. Cir. July 10, 2026)

On appeal from an inter partes review finding all challenged claims of U.S. Patent No. 10,681,109 unpatentable, the Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board violated the Court’s mandate from a prior appeal.  The ’109 patent claimed priority to 2001 and was directed to using a remote server to handle image processing for a local client device, wherein the remote server “generat[ed] at least one updated image” in response to input from the client device, then “compress[ed] the [] updated image” before transmitting it to the client.  The prior art at issue on appeal, a patent to Wiltshire, disclosed a system whereby a video game “such as Doom, Pong, Packman [sic], [or] Myst” was run on a remote server but played through a local terminal...READ MORE

Editors:
Nika Aldrich, IP Litigation Group Leader, Schwabe
Jason Wrubleski, Shareholder

Contributor:
Jason Evans, Associate