Patents Protecting Biologics or Small Molecule Drugs are Litigated, Not Others Awarded to Drug Discovery Companies

Abstract

Assuming that litigated patents are valuable, the incidence of litigation for patents protecting biologics (146 patents), small molecules (1822) or issued to drug-discovery companies per se (1929) was examined. This was done by accessing the litigation database of the company MaxVal. 20% of those protecting biologics, 40% protecting small molecules and 1% of those issued to the companies were litigated (although only 0.3% of those issued to companies that do not protect biologics or small molecules). The average time between the grant of a patent and its first litigation was 15.7, 7.8 and 2.7 (2.0) years respectively. Thus, the relevant patents of this study were litigated much later than the average litigated patent. Each litigated patent was litigated 1.7, 5.6 and 2.4 (1.0) times respectively. In each category, most litigants were companies, with very few litigations involving academic institutions or the USPTO, and no non-profit organizations. These results should be of interest to drug-discovery companies, to those who fund or acquire such companies and to non-profit drug-discovery centres.