Bartlit Beck Team Receives “Litigator of the Week” Runners-Up Honors by The American Lawyer
Bartlit Beck lawyers J. Scott Mcbride, Nevin Gewertz, Rebecca Horwitz and Meg Fasulo received “Litigator of the Week” runners-up honors by The American Lawyer following a victory in an appellate court for our client Gilead Sciences Inc., upholding an IPR ruling invalidating all claims asserted by the Regents of the University of Minnesota against Gilead’s sofosbuvir-containing Hepatitis-C treatments. The University of Minnesota sought royalties on sales exceeding $70 billion.
Excerpt from “Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs,” The American Lawyer, March 10, 2023
…“Runners-up honors also go to J. Scott McBride, Nevin Gewertz, Rebecca Horwitz and Meg Fasulo of Bartlit Beck for defending Gilead’s blockbuster hepatitis C drugs from patent infringement claims. The Federal Circuit this week upheld the firm’s win alongside co-counsel at Venable in an inter partes review at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board for Gilead, invalidating all claims of a patent asserted by the Regents of the University of Minnesota against Gilead’s hepatitis C treatments containing sofosbuvir. Federal Circuit Judge Alan Lourie wrote that the university’s patent, which provided multiple paths to create potential compounds, did not provide “a written description of what might have been described if each of the optional steps had been set forth as the only option.” The judge continued: “This argument calls to mind what Yogi Berra, the Yankee catcher, was reported to have said: ‘when one comes to a fork in the road, take it.’”