It’s been six weeks since drug maker Allergan announced that it had assigned to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe the patents on Restasis, an Allergan drug challenged both in IPR proceedings and in Hatch-Waxman proceedings in federal district court. The unorthodox agreement was intended to shield the patents from IPR proceedings (and thus restrict the challenge to district court) as the Mohawks would seek to dismiss the IPR proceedings based on the tribe’s sovereign immunity. Although Allergan suffered a setback last week when the federal court invalidated the Restasis patents and, in dicta, expressed concern about the Allergan/Mohawk arrangement, several other entities are following Allergan’s lead and assigning patents to sovereigns in hopes of avoiding IPR proceedings.
As an example, in August, SRC Labs assigned about 40 computer technology patents to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe. Last week, the tribe, with SRC as co-plaintiff, filed lawsuits against Microsoft and Amazon for infringement of its data processing patents; the assignment of the SRC patents to the tribe could prevent a counter-challenge from Microsoft and Amazon in IPR proceedings. Similarly, Prowire LLC, who has sued Apple for infringement, has assigned the patent in question to MEC Resources, a company affiliated with three tribes in North Dakota. And state universities (whom the PTAB considers to be arms of the sovereign states, and thus immune to IPR challenges) are in discussions with lawyers about offering their sovereign immunity to patent owners as a way to shield patents in IPR proceedings.
These arrangements that attempt to avoid the IPR process and force patent challenges into federal courts are no surprise given the current unbalance in the IPR system. Critical differences exist between IPR proceedings and Hatch-Waxman litigation that have created a significant deviation in patent invalidation rates under the two pathways; compared to district court challenges, patents are twice as likely to be found invalid in IPR challenges.
The PTAB applies a lower standard of proof for invalidity in IPR proceedings than do federal courts in Hatch-Waxman proceedings. In federal court, patents are presumed valid and challengers must prove each patent claim invalid by “clear and convincing evidence.” In IPR proceedings, no such presumption of validity applies and challengers must only prove patent claims invalid by the “preponderance of the evidence.” In addition to the lower burden, it is also easier for challengers to meet the standard of proof in IPR proceedings. In federal court, patent claims are construed according to their “ordinary and customary meaning” to a person of ordinary skill in the art. In contrast, the PTAB uses the more lenient “broadest reasonable interpretation” standard; this more lenient standard can result in the PTAB interpreting patent claims as “claiming too much” (using their broader standard), resulting in the invalidation of more patents.
Moreover, whereas patent challengers in district court must establish sufficient Article III standing, IPR proceedings do not have a standing requirement. This has given rise to “reverse patent trolling,” in which entities that are not litigation targets, or even participants in the same industry, threaten to file an IPR petition challenging the validity of a patent unless the patent holder agrees to specific pre-filing settlement demands. The lack of a standing requirement has also led to the exploitation of the IPR process by entities that would never be granted standing in traditional patent litigation—hedge funds betting against a company by filing an IPR challenge in hopes of crashing the stock and profiting from the bet.
Finally, patent owners are often forced into duplicative litigation in both IPR proceedings and federal court litigation, leading to persistent uncertainty about the validity of their patents. Many patent challengers that are unsuccessful in invalidating a patent in district court may pursue subsequent IPR proceedings challenging the same patent, essentially giving patent challengers “two bites at the apple.” And if the challenger prevails in the IPR proceedings (which is easier to do given the lower standard of proof and broader claim construction standard), the PTAB’s decision to invalidate a patent can often “undo” a prior district court decision. Further, although both district court judgments and PTAB decisions are appealable to the Federal Circuit, the court applies a more deferential standard of review to PTAB decisions, increasing the likelihood that they will be upheld compared to the district court decision.
Courts are increasingly recognizing that certain PTAB practices are biased against patent owners, and, in some cases, violations of underlying law. The U.S. Supreme Court in Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee concluded that the broadest reasonable interpretation claim construction standard in IPR “increases the possibility that the examiner will find the claim too broad (and deny it)” and that the different claim construction standards in PTAB trials and federal court “may produce inconsistent results and cause added confusion.” However, the Court concluded that only Congress could mandate a different standard. Earlier this month, in Aqua Products, Inc. v. Matal, the Federal Circuit held that “[d]espite repeated recognition of the importance of the patent owner’s right to amend [patent claims] during IPR proceedings— by Congress, courts, and the PTO alike—patent owners largely have been prevented from amending claims in the context of IPRs.” And the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Oil States Energy Services v. Greene’s Energy Group, which questions whether IPR proceedings are even constitutional because they extinguish private property rights through a non-Article III forum without a jury.
As Courts and lawmakers continue to question the legality and wisdom of IPR to review pharmaceutical patents, they should remember that the relationship between drug companies and patients resembles a social contract. Under this social contract, patients have the right to reasonably-priced, innovative drugs and sufficient access to alternative drug choices, while drug companies have the right to earn profits that compensate for the risk inherent in developing new products and to a stable environment that gives the companies the incentive and ability to innovate. This social contract requires a balancing of prices (not too high to gouge consumers but not too low to insufficiently compensate drug companies), competition law (not so lenient that it ignores anticompetitive behavior that restricts patients’ access to alternative drugs, but not so strict that it prevents companies from intensely competing for profits), and most importantly in the context of IPR, patent law (not so weak that it fails to incentivize innovation and drug development, but not so strong that it enables drug companies to monopolize the market for an unreasonable amount of time). The unbalanced IPR process threatens this balance by creating significant uncertainty in pharmaceutical intellectual property rights. Uncertain patent rights will lead to less innovation in the pharmaceutical industry because drug companies will not spend the billions of dollars it typically costs to bring a new drug to market when they cannot be certain if the patents for that drug can withstand IPR proceedings that are clearly stacked against them. Indeed, last week former Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul Redmond Michel acknowledged that IPR has contributed to “hobbling” our nation’s patent system, “discourag[ing] investment, R&D and commercialization.” And if IPR causes drug innovation to decline, a significant body of research predicts that consumers’ health outcomes will suffer as a result.