In a significant legal development, the Second Circuit panel has, on Monday, decided to reinvigorate the antitrust allegations that accuse Novartis, the pharmaceutical company, of trying to keep the actual historical accounts of the development processes of an eye syringe treatment a secret from the U.S. Patent Office. The alleged move was meant to gain an upper hand by driving Regeneron, another player in the market, to the brink of elimination.
The panel pointed out glitches in the judgment of a district court that insisted that the markets formed on the grounds of antitrust rules cannot be tangent to the patent. Link to the original article.
Such a conclusive intersection between the spheres of patent and antitrust regulations could lay a precedent in similar future scenarios and would help keep a check on monopolistic inclinations embedded in patent exploitations. However, deliberations over this specific case and its implications are anticipated to continue.