Wellcome Patents Upheld In USA

The US Court of Appeals has upheld an earlier ruling by a US District Court that Wellcome is the sole inventor on five of the six patents for the use of Retrovir (zidovudine) as a treatment for HIV infection. A three-judge panel upheld the earlier decision against the generic manufacturers Barr Laboratories and Novopharm who brought the case against Wellcome.

The federal circuit held that the five Wellcome scientists were correctly named as the only inventors and that two scientists employed at the US National Institutes of Health were not inventors.

The court ruling means that the injunction originally granted by the district court remains in full force and effect, prohibiting Barr and Novopharm from manufacturing or selling zidovudine in the USA until the year 2005, when the Wellcome patents expire.