Litigators rarely get to reverse their biggest loss. Rarer still is the chance to overturn the biggest patent damages award in history. A February 2011 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit allowed Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr partner William Lee to do both.
The ruling came about a year and a half after a federal jury in Marshall, Texas, found that Humira, a major arthritis drug made by Wilmer client Abbott Laboratories, infringed a patent issued to Johnson & Johnson’s Centocor Ortho Biotech, Inc., and New York University. The verdict included a $1.67 billion damages award against Abbott. Says Lee: “Happily you don’t lose cases of this magnitude very often. If you do, then you don’t have them to lose.” Abbott rejected his offer to bring in another firm for the appeal—a decision that paid off when the Federal Circuit found the patent claims at issue invalid due to insufficient written description.
