Inherent Property of Earlier-Made CRESTOR® Formulations Invalidate Later-Issued Teva Patent

Defendant's motion for summary judgment of invalidity due to prior invention was granted. "[T]he Federal Circuit has recognized that a prior inventor need not always have appreciated every feature recited in a patent claim in order to have conceived of or reduced to practice the claimed invention. . . . In view of the fact that the earlier-made CRESTOR® product formulations have been shown to meet all limitations of the asserted [patent] claims (by virtue of [defendant's] limited concession of infringement), [plaintiff's] discovery that crospovidone contributes to the stability of the formulations resembles the sort of scientific explanation for a prior art composition’s functioning that the Federal Circuit has found to be an inherent property of the prior art in other cases. The discovery of this inherent property does not make the pharmaceutical compositions claimed by [plaintiff] -- which [defendant] undisputedly made first -- new."

Teva Pharmaceutical Indus. Ltd. v. Astrazeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, et. al., 2-08-cv-04786 (PAED October 20, 2010, Memorandum and/or Opinion) (Yohn, J.)