Supreme Court Rejects Johnson & Johnson's Lawsuit Over Abbott Laboratories's Humira

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to consider a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary's bid to save its high-stakes patent lawsuit targeting Abbott Laboratories' blockbuster treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. Last February, a federal appeals court threw out a 2009 jury verdict that ordered Abbott to pay $1.67 billion in damages because its arthritis therapy Humira allegedly infringed a patent co-owned by J&J unit Centocor Ortho Biotech, now known as Janssen Biotech, and New York University. The appeals court ruling, which removed a major legal cloud hanging over Abbott, said Centocor's patent claims were invalid because they lacked adequate written descriptions.