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- Subject: 89-243, OPINION, ELI LILLY & CO. v. MEDTRONIC, INC.
-
-
-
-
- NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in
- the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested
- to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States,
- Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in
- order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to
- press.
-
- SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
-
-
- No. 89-243
-
-
-
- ELI LILLY AND COMPANY, PETITIONER v.
- MEDTRONIC, INC.
-
-
- on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the federal
- circuit
-
- [June 18, 1990]
-
-
-
- Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.
-
- This case presents the question whether 35 U. S. C. 271(e)(1) renders
- activities that would otherwise constitute patent infringement
- noninfringing if they are undertaken for the purpose of developing and
- submitting to the Food and Drug Administration information necessary to
- obtain marketing approval for a medical device under 515 of the Federal
- Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 90 Stat. 552, 21 U. S. C. 360e (FDCA).
-
- I
- In 1983, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. 1338(a), the predecessor- in-interest
- of petitioner Eli Lilly filed an action against respondent Medtronic in the
- United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to
- enjoin respondent's testing and marketing of an implantable cardiac
- defibrillator, a medical device used in the treatment of heart patients.
- Petitioner claimed that respondent's actions infringed its exclusive rights
- under United States Patent No. Re 27,757 and United States Patent No.
- 3,942,536. Respondent sought to defend against the suit on the ground that
- its activities were "reasonably related to the development and submission
- of information under" the FDCA, and thus exempt from a finding of
- infringement under 35 U. S. C. 271(e)(1). The District Court rejected this
- argument, concluding that the exemption does not apply to the development
- and submission of information relating to medical devices. Following a
- jury trial, the jury returned a verdict for petitioner on infringement of
- the first patent and the court directed a verdict for petitioner on
- infringement of the second patent. The court entered judgment for
- petitioner and issued a permanent injunction against infringement of both
- patents.
- On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed,
- holding that by virtue of 35 U. S. C. 271(e)(1) respondent's activities
- could not constitute infringement if they had been undertaken to develop
- information reasonably related to the development and submission of
- information necessary to obtain regulatory approval under the FDCA. It
- remanded for the District Court to determine whether in fact that condition
- had been met. 872 F. 2d 402 (1989). We granted certiorari. 493 U. S.
- (1989).
-
- II
- In 1984, Congress enacted the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term
- Restoration Act of 1984, 98 Stat. 1585 (1984 Act), which amended the FDCA
- and the patent laws in several important respects. The issue in this case
- concerns the proper interpretation of a portion of section 202 of the 1984
- Act, codified at 35 U. S. C. 271(e)(1). That paragraph, as originally
- enacted, provided:
-
- "It shall not be an act of infringement to make, use, or sell a
- patented invention (other than a new animal drug or veterinary biological
- product (as those terms are used in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic
- Act and the Act of March 4, 1913)) solely for uses reasonably related to
- the development and submission of information under a Federal law which
- regulates the manufacture, use, or sale of drugs." 35 U. S. C. 271(e)(1)
- (1982 ed., Supp. II). {1}
-
-
- The parties dispute whether this provision exempts from infringement the
- use of patented inventions to develop and submit information for marketing
- approval of medical devices under the FDCA.
-
- A
- The phrase "patented invention" in 271(e)(1) is defined to include all
- inventions, not drug-related inventions alone. See 35 U. S. C. 100(a)
- ("When used in this title unless the context otherwise indicates . . .
- [t]he term `invention' means invention or discovery"). The core of the
- present controversy is that petitioner interprets the statutory phrase, "a
- Federal law which regulates the manufacture, use, or sale of drugs," to
- refer only to those individual provisions of federal law that regulate
- drugs, whereas respondent interprets it to refer to the entirety of any Act
- (including, of course, the FDCA) at least some of whose provisions regulate
- drugs. If petitioner is correct, only such provisions of the FDCA as 505,
- 52 Stat. 1052, as amended, 21 U. S. C. 355, governing premarket approval of
- new drugs, are covered by 271 (e)(1), and respondent's submission of
- information under 21 U. S. C. 360e, governing premarket approval of medical
- devices, would not be a noninfringing use.
- On the basis of the words alone, respondent's interpretation seems
- preferable. The phrase "a Federal law" can be used to refer to an isolated
- statutory section, one might say, for example, that the judicial review
- provision of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. 706, is "a
- Federal law." The phrase is also used, however, to refer to an entire Act.
- The Constitution, for example, provides that "Every Bill which shall have
- passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become
- a Law, be presented to the President of the United States." U. S. Const.,
- Art. I, 7, cl. 2 (emphasis added). And the United States Code provides
- that "[w]henever a bill . . . becomes a law or takes effect, it shall
- forthwith be received by the Archivist of the United States from the
- President." 1 U. S. C. 106a (emphasis added). This latter usage, which is
- probably the more common one, seems also the more natural in the pres ent
- context. If 271(e)(1) referred to "a Federal law which pertains to the
- manufacture, use, or sale of drugs" it might be more reasonable to think
- that an individual provision was referred to. But the phrase "a Federal
- law which regulates the manufacture, use, or sale of drugs" more naturally
- summons up the image of an entire statutory scheme of regulation. The
- portion of 271(e)(1) that immediately precedes the words "a Federal law"
- likewise seems more compatible with reference to an entire Act. It refers
- to "the development and submission of information under a Federal law"
- (emphasis added). It would be more common, if a single section rather than
- an entire scheme were referred to, to speak of "the development and
- submission of information pursuant to a Federal law," or perhaps "in
- compliance with a Federal law." Taking the action "under a Federal law"
- suggests taking it in furtherance of or compliance with a comprehensive
- scheme of regulation. Finally, and perhaps most persuasively, the fact
- that 202 of the 1984 Act (which established 271(e)(1)) used the word "law"
- in its broader sense is strongly suggested by the fact that the immediately
- preceding, and, as we shall see, closely related, section of the 1984 Act,
- when it meant to refer to a particular provision of law rather than an
- entire Act, referred to "the first permitted commercial marketing or use of
- the product under the provision of law." 201, 98 Stat. 1598, 35 U. S. C.
- 156(a)(5)(A) (emphasis added).
- The centrally important distinction in this legislation (from the
- standpoint of the commercial interests affected) is not between
- applications for drug approval and applications for device approval, but
- between patents relating to drugs and patents relating to devices. If only
- the former patents were meant to be included, there were available such
- infinitely more clear and simple ways of expressing that intent that it is
- hard to believe the convoluted manner petitioner suggests was employed
- would have been selected. The provision might have read, for example, "It
- shall not be an act of infringement to make, use, or sell a patented drug
- invention . . . solely for uses reasonably related to the development and
- submission of information required, as a condition of manufacture, use, or
- sale, by Federal law." Petitioner contends that the terms "patented drug,"
- or "drug invention" (or, presumably, "patented drug invention") would have
- been "potentially unclear" as to whether they covered only patents for drug
- products, or patents for drug composition and drug use as well. Brief for
- Petitioner 22. If that had been the concern, however, surely it would have
- been clearer and more natural to expand the phrase constituting the object
- of the sentence to "patented invention for drug product, drug composition,
- or drug use" than to bring in such a limitation indirectly by merely
- limiting the laws under which the information is submitted to drug
- regulation laws.
- On the other side of the ledger, however, one must admit that while the
- provision more naturally means what respondent suggests, it is somewhat
- difficult to understand why anyone would want it to mean that. Why should
- the touchstone of noninfringement be whether the use is related to the
- development and submission of information under a provision that happens to
- be included within an Act that, in any of its provisions, not necessarily
- the one at issue, regulates drugs? The first response is that this was a
- shorthand reference to the pertinent provisions Congress was aware of, all
- of which happened to be included in Acts that regulated drugs. But since
- it is conceded that all those pertinent provisions were contained within
- only two Acts (the FDCA and the Public Health Service Act (PHS Act), 58
- Stat. 682, as amended, 42 U. S. C. 201 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. II)),
- that is not much of a time-saving shorthand. The only rejoinder can be
- that Congress anticipated future regulatory-submission requirements that it
- would want to be covered, which might not be included in the FDCA or the
- PHS Act but would surely (or probably) be included in another law that
- regulates drugs. That is not terribly convincing. On the other hand, this
- same awkwardness, in miniature, also inheres in petitioner's
- interpretation, unless one gives "under a Federal law" a meaning it simply
- will not bear. That is to say, if one interprets the phrase to refer to
- only a single section or even subsection of federal law, it is hard to
- understand why the fact that that section or subsection happens to regulate
- drugs should bring within 271(e)(1) other products that it also regulates;
- and it does not seem within the range of permissible meaning to interpret
- "a Federal law" to mean only isolated portions of a single section or
- subsection. The answer to this, presumably, is that Congress would not
- expect two products to be dealt with in the same section or subsection, but
- that also is not terribly convincing.
- As far as the text is concerned, therefore, we conclude that we have
- before us a provision that somewhat more naturally reads as the Court of
- Appeals determined, but that is not plainly comprehensible on anyone's
- view. Both parties seek to enlist legislative history in support of their
- interpretation, but that sheds no clear light. {2} We think the Court of
- Appeals' interpretation is confirmed, however, by the structure of the 1984
- Act taken as a whole.
-
- B
- Under federal law, a patent "grant[s] to the patentee, his heirs or
- assigns, for the term of seventeen years, . . . the right to exclude others
- from making, using, or selling the invention throughout the United States."
- 35 U. S. C. 154. Except as otherwise provided, "whoever without authority
- makes, uses or sells any patented invention, within the United States
- during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent." 35 U. S. C.
- 271(a). The parties agree that the 1984 Act was designed to respond to two
- unintended distortions of the 17-year patent term produced by the
- requirement that certain products must receive premarket regulatory
- approval. First, the holder of a patent relating to such products would as
- a practical matter not be able reap any financial rewards during the early
- years of the term. When an inventor makes a potentially useful discovery,
- he ordinarily protects it by applying for a patent at once. Thus, if the
- discovery relates to a product that cannot be marketed without substantial
- testing and regulatory approval, the "clock" on his patent term will be
- running even though he is not yet able to derive any profit from the
- invention.
- The second distortion occurred at the other end of the patent term. In
- 1984, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided that the
- manufacture, use, or sale of a patented invention during the term of the
- patent constituted an act of infringement, see 35 U. S. C. 271(a), even if
- it was for the sole purpose of conducting tests and developing information
- necessary to apply for regulatory approval. See Roche Products, Inc. v.
- Bolar Pharmaceutical Co., 733 F. 2d 858 (CA Fed.), cert. denied, 469 U. S.
- 856 (1984). {3} Since that activity could not be commenced by those who
- planned to compete with the patentee until expiration of the entire patent
- term, the patentee's de facto monopoly would continue for an often
- substantial period until regulatory approval was obtained. In other words,
- the combined effect of the patent law and the premarket regulatory approval
- requirement was to create an effective extension of the patent term.
- The 1984 Act sought to eliminate this distortion from both ends of the
- patent period. Section 201 of the Act established a patent-term extension
- for patents relating to certain products that were subject to lengthy
- regulatory delays and could not be marketed prior to regulatory approval.
- The eligible products were described as follows:
-
-
- "(1) The term `product' means:
- "(A) A human drug product.
- "(B) Any medical device, food additive, or color additive subject to
- regulation under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
- "(2) The term `human drug product' means the active ingredient of a new
- drug, antibiotic drug, or human biological product (as those terms are used
- in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Public Health Services
- Act) including any salt or ester of the active ingredient, as a single
- entity or in combination with another active ingredient." 35 U. S. C.
- 156(f).
-
-
- Section 201 provides that patents relating to these products can be
- extended up to five years if, inter alia, the product was "subject to a
- regulatory review period before its commercial marketing or use," and "the
- permission for the commercial marketing or use of the product after such
- regulatory review period [was] the first permitted commercial marketing or
- use of the product under the provision of law under which such regulatory
- review period occurred." 35 U. S. C. 156(a).
- The distortion at the other end of the patent period was addressed by
- 202 of the Act. That added to the provision prohibiting patent
- infringement, 35 U. S. C. 271, the paragraph at issue here, establishing
- that "[i]t shall not be an act of infringement to make, use, or sell a
- patented invention . . . solely for uses reasonably related to the
- development and submission of information under a Federal law which
- regulates the manufacture, use, or sale of drugs." 35 U. S. C. 271(e)(1).
- This allows competitors, prior to the expiration of a patent, to engage in
- otherwise infringing activities necessary to obtain regulatory approval.
- Under respondent's interpretation, there may be some relatively rare
- situations in which a patentee will obtain the advantage of the 201
- extension but not suffer the disadvantage of the 202 noninfringement
- provision, and others in which he will suffer the disadvantage without the
- benefit. {4} Under petitioner's interpretation, however, that sort of
- disequilibrium becomes the general rule for patents relating to all
- products (other than drugs) named in 201 and subject to premarket approval
- under the FDCA. Not only medical devices, but also food additives and
- color additives, since they are specifically named in 201, see 35 U. S. C.
- 156(f), receive the patent-term extension; but since the specific
- provisions requiring regulatory approval for them, though included in the
- FDCA, are not provisions requiring regulatory approval for drugs, they are
- (on petitioner's view) not subject to the noninfringement provision of
- 271(e)(1). It seems most implausible to us that Congress, being
- demonstrably aware of the dual distorting effects of regulatory approval
- requirements in this entire area, dual distorting effects that were roughly
- offsetting, the disadvantage at the beginning of the term producing a more
- or less corresponding advantage at the end of the term, should choose to
- address both those distortions only for drug products; and for other
- products named in 201 should enact provisions which not only leave in place
- an anticompetitive restriction at the end of the monopoly term but
- simultaneously expand the monopoly term itself, thereby not only failing to
- eliminate but positively aggravating distortion of the 17-year patent
- protection. It would take strong evidence to persuade us that this is what
- Congress wrought, and there is no such evidence here. {5}
- Apart from the reason of the matter, there are textual indications that
- sections 201 and 202 are meant generally to be complementary. That
- explains, for example, 202's exception for "a new animal drug or veterinary
- biological product (as those terms are used in the Federal Food, Drug, and
- Cosmetic Act and the Act of March 4, 1913)." 35 U. S. C. 271(e)(1).
- Although new animal drugs and veterinary biological products are subject to
- premarket regulatory licensing and approval under the FDCA, see 21 U. S. C.
- 360b (new animal drugs), and the Act of March 4, 1913, see 21 U. S. C. 151,
- 154 (veterinary biological products), each "a Federal law which regulates
- the manufacture, use, or sale of drugs", neither product was included in
- the patent-term extension provision of section 201. They therefore were
- excepted from 202 as well. Interpreting 271(e)(1) as the Court of Appeals
- did here appears to create a perfect "product" fit between the two
- sections. All of the products eligible for a patent term extension under
- 201 are subject to 202, since all of them, medical devices, food additives,
- color additives, new drugs, antibiotic drugs, and human biological
- products, are subject to premarket approval under various provisions of the
- FDCA, see 21 U. S. C. 360e (medical devices); 348 (food additives); 376
- (color additives); 355 (new drugs); 357 (antibiotic drugs), or under the
- PHS Act, see 42 U. S. C. 262 (human biological products). And the products
- subject to premarket approval under the FDCA and the Act of March 4, 1913
- that are not made eligible for a patent term extension under 201, new
- animal drugs and veterinary biological products, are excluded from 202 as
- well. {6}
-
- III
- According to petitioner, "[t]he argument for a broad construction of
- Section 271(e)(1) is refuted by the companion Sections (e)(2) and (e)(4)."
- Brief for Petitioner 17. The latter provide:
-
- "(2) It shall be an act of infringement to submit an application under
- section 505(j) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act or described in
- section 505(b)(2) of such Act for a drug claimed in a patent or the use of
- which is claimed in a patent, if the purpose of such submission is to
- obtain approval under such Act to engage in the commercial manufacture,
- use, or sale of a drug claimed in a patent or the use of which is claimed
- in a patent before the expiration of such patent.
-
- . . . . .
-
-
-
- "(4) For an act of infringement described in paragraph (2) ,
- "(A) the court shall order the effective date
- of any approval of the drug involved in the
- infringement to be a date which is not earlier
- than the date of the expiration of the patent
- which has been infringed,
- "(B) injunctive relief may be granted against
- an infringer to prevent the commercial
- manufacture, use, or sale of an approved drug, and
- "(C) damages or other monetary relief may be
- awarded against an infringer only if there has
- been commercial manufacture, use, or sale of an
- approved drug.
- "The remedies prescribed by subparagraphs (A), (B), and (C) are the only
- remedies which may be granted by a court for an act of infringement
- described in paragraph (2), except that a court may award attorney fees
- under section 285." 35 U. S. C. 271(e)(2), (4).
-
-
- Petitioner points out that the protections afforded by these provisions are
- conferred exclusively on the holders of drug patents. They would, he
- contends, have been conferred upon the holders of other patents if Congress
- had intended the infringement exemption of 271(e)(1) to apply to them as
- well.
- That is not so. The function of the paragraphs in question is to
- define a new (and somewhat artificial) act of infringement for a very
- limited and technical purpose that relates only to certain drug
- applications. As an additional means of eliminating the de facto extension
- at the end of the patent term in the case of drugs, and to enable new drugs
- to be marketed more cheaply and quickly, 101 of the 1984 Act amended 505 of
- the FDCA, 21 U. S. C. 355, to authorize abbreviated new drug applications
- (ANDAs), which would substantially shorten the time and effort needed to
- obtain marketing approval. An ANDA may be filed for a generic drug that is
- the same as a so-called "pioneer drug" previously approved, see 21 U. S. C.
- 355(j)(2)(A), or that differs from the pioneer drug in specified ways, see
- 21 U. S. C. 355(j)(2)(C). The ANDA applicant can substitute bioequivalence
- data for the extensive animal and human studies of safety and effectiveness
- that must accompany a full new drug application. Compare 21 U. S. C.
- 355(j)(2)(A)(iv), with 355(b)(1). In addition, 103 of the 1984 Act amended
- 505(b) of the FDCA, 21 U. S. C. 355(b), to permit submission of a so-called
- paper new drug application (paper NDA), an application that relies on
- published literature to satisfy the requirement of animal and human studies
- demonstrating safety and effectiveness. See 21 U. S. C. 355(b)(2). Like
- ANDAs, paper NDAs permit an applicant seeking approval of a generic drug to
- avoid the costly and time-consuming studies required for a pioneer drug.
- These abbreviated drug-application provisions incorporated an important
- new mechanism designed to guard against infringement of patents relating to
- pioneer drugs. Pioneer drug applicants are required to file with the FDA
- the number and expiration date of any patent which claims the drug that is
- the subject of the application, or a method of using such drug. See 21 U.
- S. C. 355(b)(1). ANDAs and paper NDAs are required to contain one of four
- certifications with respect to each patent named in the pioneer drug
- application: (1) "that such patent information has not been filed," (2)
- "that such patent has expired," (3) "the date on which such patent will
- expire," or (4) "that such patent is invalid or will not be infringed by
- the manufacture, use, or sale of the new drug for which the application is
- submitted." 21 U. S. C. 355(b) (2)(A), 355(j)(2)(A)(vii).
- This certification is significant, in that it determines the date on
- which approval of an ANDA or paper NDA can be made effective, and hence the
- date on which commercial marketing may commence. If the applicant makes
- either the first or second certification, approval can be made effective
- immediately. See 21 U. S. C. 355(c)(3)(A), 355(j)(4)(B)(i). If the
- applicant makes the third certification, approval of the application can be
- made effective as of the date the patent expires. See 21 U. S. C.
- 355(c)(3)(B), 355(j)(4)(B)(ii). If the applicant makes the fourth
- certification, however, the effective date must depend on the outcome of
- further events triggered by the Act. An applicant who makes the fourth
- certification is required to give notice to the holder of the patent
- alleged to be invalid or not infringed, stating that an application has
- been filed seeking approval to engage in the commercial manufacture, use,
- or sale of the drug before the expiration of the patent, and setting forth
- a detailed statement of the factual and legal basis for the applicant's
- opinion that the patent is not valid or will not be infringed. See 21 U.
- S. C. 355(b)(3)(B), 355(j)(2)(B)(ii). Approval of an ANDA or paper NDA
- containing the fourth certification may become effective immediately only
- if the patent owner has not initiated a lawsuit for infringement within 45
- days of receiving notice of the certification. If the owner brings such a
- suit, then approval may not be made effective until the court rules that
- the patent is not infringed or until the expiration of (in general) 30
- months, whichever first occurs. See 21 U. S. C. 355(c)(3)(C),
- 355(j)(4)(B)(iii).
- This scheme will not work, of course, if the holder of the patent
- pertaining to the pioneer drug is disabled from establishing in court that
- there has been an act of infringement. And that was precisely the
- disability that the new 271(e)(1) imposed, with regard to use of his
- patented invention only for the purpose of obtaining premarketing approval.
- Thus, an act of infringement had to be created for these ANDA and paper NDA
- proceedings. That is what is achieved by 271 (e)(2), the creation of a
- highly artificial act of infringement that consists of submitting an ANDA
- or a paper NDA containing the fourth type of certification that is in error
- as to whether commercial manufacture, use, or sale of the new drug (none of
- which, of course, has actually occurred) violates the relevant patent. Not
- only is the defined act of infringement artificial, so are the specified
- consequences, as set forth in paragraph (e)(4). Monetary damages are
- permitted only if there has been "commercial manufacture, use, or sale."
- 35 U. S. C. 271(e)(4)(C). Quite obviously, the purpose of (e)(2) and
- (e)(4) is to enable the judicial adjudication upon which the ANDA and paper
- NDA schemes depend. It is wholly to be expected, therefore, that these
- provisions would apply only to applications under the sections establishing
- those schemes, which (entirely incidentally, for present purposes) happen
- to be sections that relate only to drugs and not to other products. {7}
-
- ***
- No interpretation we have been able to imagine can transform 271(e)(1)
- into an elegant piece of statutory draftsmanship. To construe it as the
- Court of Appeals decided, one must posit a good deal of legislative
- imprecision; but to construe it as petitioner would, one must posit that
- and an implausible substantive intent as well.
- The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed, and the case remanded
- for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
- So ordered.
-
-
- Justice O'Connor took no part in the consideration or decision of this
- case.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 1
- Unless otherwise specified, references to sections of the United States
- Code are to those sections as they existed upon the effective date of the
- 1984 Act.
-
- 2
- Petitioner's principal argument is that the legislative history of 202
- mentions only drugs, which is quite different, of course, from its saying
- (as it does not) that only drugs are included. "It is not the law that a
- statute can have no effects which are not explicitly mentioned in its
- legislative history . . . ." Pittston Coal Group v. Sebben, 488 U. S. 105,
- 115 (1988). As respondent notes, even the legislative history of 201,
- whose text explicitly includes devices, contains only scant references to
- devices.
-
- 3
- Petitioner suggests that it was "the 1984 Roche decision which prompted
- enactment of [202]," Brief for Petitioner 20, n. 13, which should therefore
- be regarded as quite independent of the simultaneously enacted patent-term
- extension of 201. Undoubtedly the decision in Roche prompted the proposal
- of 202; but whether that alone accounted for its enactment is quite a
- different question. It seems probable that Congress, for the reasons we
- discuss in text, would have regarded 201 and 202 as related parts of a
- single legislative package, as we do.
-
- 4
- We cannot readily imagine such situations (and petitioner has not
- described any), except where there is good enough reason for the
- difference. Petitioner states that disequilibrium of this sort will often
- occur because the 271(e)(1) noninfringement provision applies "whether the
- patent term is extended or not," and even with respect to "patents which
- cannot qualify for a term extension." Reply Brief for Petitioner 11. But
- if the patent term is not extended only because the patentee does not
- apply, he surely has no cause for complaint. And the major reason relevant
- patents will not qualify for the term extension is that they pertain to
- "follow-on" drug products rather than "pioneer" drug products, see
- 156(a)(5)(A), 156 (f)(2); Fisons plc v. Quigg, 876 F. 2d 99 (CA Fed. 1989).
- For these, however, the abbreviated regulatory approval procedures
- established by Title I of the 1984 Act, 98 Stat. 1585, see 21 U. S. C.
- 355(b)(2), (j), eliminate substantial regulatory delay at the outset of the
- patent term, and thus eliminate the justification for the 156 extension.
-
- 5
- Petitioner argues that there was good reason for Congress to estab-
- lish an infringement exemption with respect to drugs but not devices, since
- testing of the latter does much greater economic harm to the patentee.
- Devices, petitioner contends, are much more expensive than drugs ($17,000
- apiece for respondent's allegedly infringing defibrillators); and many have
- only a small number of potential customers, who will purchase only a single
- device each, so that depleting the market through testing may do
- substantial harm. Brief for Petitioner 30-31. These concerns, however,
- apply with respect to certain drugs as well. According to one source, a
- year's dosage of Cyclosporine (used to suppress rejection of new organs)
- costs from $5,000 to $7,000; of AZT (used to treat AIDS) $8,000; of
- Monoclate (used to speed blood clotting in hemophiliacs) $25,000; and of
- Growth Hormone (used to treat dwarfism) $8,000 to $30,000. A. Pollack, The
- Troubling Cost of Drugs That Offer Hope, N. Y. Times, Feb. 9, 1988, p. A1,
- col. 3. Another new drug, Tissue Plasminogen Activator, used in the
- treatment of heart attacks to dissolve blood clots, costs $2,200 per dose,
- and is prescribed for only a single dose. Ibid. Moreover, even if the
- factors petitioner mentions could explain the omission from 271(e)(1) of
- medical devices, they could not explain the omission of food additives and
- color additives.
-
- 6
- It is true that 202, if interpreted to apply to all products regulated
- by the FDCA and other drug-regulating statutes, has a product coverage that
- includes other products, in addition to new animal drugs and veterinary
- biological products, not numbered among the specifically named products in
- 201, for example, food, infant formulas, cosmetics, pesticides, and
- vitamins. But for the 202 exemption to be applicable, the patent use must
- be "reasonably related to the development and submission of information
- under" the relevant law. New animal drugs and veterinary biological
- products appear to be the only additional products covered by
- drug-regulating statutes for which the requirement of premarket approval,
- and hence the need for "development and submission of information",
- existed. With respect to food, infant formulas, cosmetics, and pesticides,
- for example, the FDCA merely established generally applicable standards
- that had to be met. See, e. g., 21 U. S. C. 341 (food); 350a (infant
- formula); 361 (cosmetics); 346a (pesticides); cf. 350 (vitamins).
- It must be acknowledged that the seemingly complete product-correlation
- between 201 and 202 was destroyed in 1986, when, without adding "new infant
- formula" to the defined products eligible for the patent-term extension
- under 156, Congress established a premarket approval requirement for that
- product, and thus automatically rendered it eligible for the 271(e)(1)
- exemption from patent infringement. See Pub. L. 99-570, 4014(a)(7), 100
- Stat. 3207-116, codified at 21 U. S. C. 350a(d). That subsequent enactment
- does not change our view of what the statute means. That isolated
- indication of lack of correlation between 156 and 271(e)(1) is in any event
- contradicted by the 1988 amendment that added most new animal drugs and
- veterinary biological products to 156 and simultaneously deleted from
- 271(e)(1) the infringement exception for those products. See Generic
- Animal Drug and Patent Term Restoration Act, 102 Stat. 3971, 3984-3989.
-
- 7
- Although petitioner has not challenged 271(e)(1) on constitutional
- grounds, it argues that we should adopt its construction because of the
- "serious constitutional question under the takings clause of the Fifth
- Amendment . . . [that would arise] if the statute is interpreted to
- authorize the infringing use of medical devices." Brief for Petitioner 31.
- We do not see how this consideration makes any difference. Even if the
- competitive injury caused by the noninfringement provision is de minimis
- with respect to most drugs, surely it is substantial with respect to some
- of them, so the "serious constitutional question" (if it is that) is not
- avoided by petitioner's construction either.
-