On Mar. 05, 2020, Federal Circuit (Rule 36 judgment) upheld a Massachusetts court’s decision that Celltrion’s biosimilar Inflectra (infliximab-dyyb) does not infringe Janssen’s patent.

The main patent at issues was U.S. Patent No. 7,598,083, which claims cell culture media compositions used to produce infliximab. Janssen does not allege literal infringement of the ‘083 patent. Rather, Janssen argues only that Celltrion’s accused media infringe claim 1 under the doctrine of equivalents. Celltrion denied the allegations and moved for summary judgment of non-infringement on the grounds that Janssen’s asserted scope of equivalents would ensnare the prior art. District Court Judge Mark Wolf in his 104-page ruling held that the “defendants are entitled to summary judgment of non-infringement of the ‘083 patent because Janssen has not produced sufficient evidence to prove that the scope of equivalents would not ensnare the prior art.” In essence, the court found that no reasonable factfinder could conclude that the hypothetical claims that Janssen relies upon to avoid ensnarement would have been patentable because they were obvious rather than inventive. You can read the summary “reported here” on this blog.