Hedge fund manager defends IPR petitions
Dallas-based hedge fund Hayman Capital Management has defended its owner’s decision to challenge a clutch of patents using the inter partes review (IPR) procedure.
Last week it emerged that Kyle Bass, through a company he created called the Coalition for Affordable Drugs, had asked for a review of a Jazz Pharmaceuticals patent related to its best-selling narcolepsy drug Xyrem (sodium oxybate).
Jazz is the third pharmaceutical company to have its patents targeted by Bass.
His first petition was filed in February with a request to invalidate a patent protecting Acorda Therapeutics’s Ampyra (dalfampridine), a treatment to help multiple sclerosis patients.
Earlier this month, he also challenged patents covering two drugs by Dublin-based Shire.
A spokesperson for Hayman Capital Management told LSIPR that the petitions “fulfil the defined purpose of the IPR process”, and target patents that the Coalition for Affordable Drugs believes to be not innovative.
“Congress created the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and inter partes review process with the goal of streamlining challenges to illegitimate patents,” the spokesperson said.
“A small minority of drug companies are abusing the patent system to sustain invalid patents that contain no meaningful innovations but serve to maintain their anti-competitive high-price monopoly to the detriment of Americans suffering from illness.
“The IPR petitions fulfil the defined purpose of the IPR process and address very specific patents that we believe, unlike the vast majority of legitimate patents, do not represent true innovation or invention.”
IPRs are trial proceedings that petitioners can file at the US Patent and Trademark Office’s PTAB to dispute a patent’s validity.
The reviews were introduced as part of the America Invents Act.