Trials & Litigation
Jury Awards $1.67B to Drugmaker in Record-Breaking Patent Verdict
Posted Jun 29, 2009, 05:08 pm CST
By Martha Neil
Siding with the world's biggest health care company, a federal jury in Texas awarded a record-breaking $1.67 billion today to a Johnson & Johnson unit after five hours of deliberation.
In its verdict against Abbott Laboratories, the jury found that the Illinois-based drugmaker willfully violated an exclusive patent licensing agreement between J&J and New York University concerning the Centocor unit's Remicade autoimmune treatment, reports Bloomberg.
The $1.67 billion verdict in the Eastern District of Texas case is the largest patent award ever in the U.S., according to the news agency, and one of the largest made this year in any type of litigation.
Abbott had argued both that its own Humira autoimmune treatment didn't infringe the patent and that the patent is invalid.
“We’re elated with the result,” says J&J attorney Richard Sayles of Sayles Werbner in Dallas. “It was one we hoped for and we are very pleased with.”
Abbott is disappointed with the verdict and plans to appeal, a spokesman tells the news agency.
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