Cox-2
University Prepares Supreme Court Request
The University was preparing this summer to ask the Supreme Court to review
Rochester’s effort to enforce its patent for a class of pain relievers
known as cox-2 inhibitors.
That’s after the U.S. Court of Appeals in July declined, by a 7–5
vote, to have the full court hear Rochester’s appeal on the validity of
the patent. In February, a three-judge panel of that court upheld a lower court
ruling that the University’s patent, issued in 2000, was invalid.
“This is obviously disappointing, although the fact that there were five
separate opinions written confirms the view that this is a major issue of patent
law,” President Jackson said this summer.
The case stems from 1992, when Rochester filed an application to protect the
work of a Medical Center team led by biochemist Donald Young. The University
researchers discovered the gene that contains the chemical instructions for
producing the enzyme cox-2 and pinpointed the enzyme’s role in causing
inflammation.
The University had filed an infringement lawsuit against the pharmaceutical
company Pfizer, which makes the popular cox-2 inhibitor Celebrex.
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