Court of Appeal upholds 2005 Barr/Cipro decision

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld the 2005 decision of the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, which rejected a challenge to the lawfulness of a 1997 patent litigation settlement between Barr Laboratories and the US subsidiary of Germany's Bayer related to the antibiotic Cipro (ciprofloxacin).

In announcing its decision, the Court of Appeals affirmed "the grant of summary judgment by the District Court for the Eastern District of New York that the agreements were not in violation of section 1 of the Sherman Act because any anti-competitive effects caused by the agreements were within the exclusionary zone of the patent. We further affirm the court's dismissal of the state antitrust claims."