In the latest installment of their Law360 column on recent noteworthy Federal Circuit decisions, Knobbe Martens partners Sean Murray and Jeremiah Helm explore how the court addressed the issue of patent corrections in Enanta Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Pfizer Inc.
The patent infringement dispute between the pharmaceutical companies centered on a patent directed to a compound and method of treating coronavirus, and a central issue in the case became an errant discrepancy between Enanta’s provisional application and issued patent. The Federal Circuit held that, while a court may judicially correct an obvious error in a patent, it may not correct an error in a provisional patent. The Federal Circuit therefore affirmed the district court’s decision that the patent was invalid over a prior disclosure because the typo prevented the patent from claiming priority to the provisional.
“Enanta ultimately lost, but its argument was worth making,” write Murray and Helm. The authors share that while a key takeaway from Enanta is the importance of careful proofreading during the entire patent application process, it highlights the value of prioritizing accuracy over speed when filing a provisional application.
Read the full article, “When Courts Can’t Correct Patent Errors”, in Law360.
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