Litigation

Biofrontera Pharma GMBH et al. v. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Inc.

Final Written Decision

IPR2024-01312

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Court: Patent Trial and Appeal Board
Filed: 2024-08-21
Terminated: 2026-02-23

Patents at issue (1)

11697028 PTAB settled/terminated

Plaintiffs (4)

Defendants (1)

Δ Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Inc.

Summary

Biofrontera Pharma GMBH et al. initiated an Inter Partes Review (IPR) against Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Inc. concerning patent 11697028, which concluded with a Final Written Decision.

Case overview & background

Plain-language overview of the case: parties, accused product, patents at issue, and why the suit matters.

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Key legal developments & outcome

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Plaintiff representatives

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Defendant representatives

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Record id: 11697028-ipr2024-01312 · edit in Admin

Further reading

Patent term and expiration
Patents don't last forever. They don't even reliably last 20 years. The expiration date that actually matters depends on the earliest filing date, the maintenance schedule, and any USPTO or FDA delays the patent owner can claim back.
Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc. (1996)
Claim construction is exclusively the court's job. The Markman hearing is the most consequential single ruling in nearly every patent case — and a defendant's best chance to end the litigation before trial.
How patent trolls operate (and why the business model works)
A junk patent generates settlement income exactly the same way as a strong one, because nobody pays $1M to test a $200k demand. The mechanics matter because the failure modes — what makes assertion campaigns expensive or risky for the troll — are exactly where defendants find leverage.
Prior-art research, old way vs new way — a side-by-side comparison
Defense is expensive because reading thousands of pages of patents takes time. AI doesn't change that for the lawyer's strategic work — but the time-on-pages part collapses by orders of magnitude.
Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co. (2002)
Narrow your claim during prosecution and you presumptively give up the equivalents in between. The presumption is rebuttable, but in practice the prosecution history is a defendant's gold mine.

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