Getting your player ready...
WILMINGTON, Del. — Pfizer’s patent on its impotence drug, Viagra, was partially rejected after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said it wasn’t different enough from a Chinese herb known as horny goat weed. An appeals board within the agency on Friday upheld a decision that an element, or claim, of the patent for a method of treating male erectile dysfunction didn’t cover a new invention. The patent claim was key to an infringement suit Pfizer filed in 2002 against Eli Lilly over its rival Cialis drug. The decision can be appealed.
Bayer, which makes the impotence pill Levitra, had also asked the agency to review the patent. Bloomberg News
