CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARIA) and its co-plaintiffs today announced that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed part of the decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in the plaintiffs’ lawsuit against Eli Lilly and Company. The plaintiffs had sued Lilly for infringing the co-plaintiffs’ pioneering U.S. patent covering methods of treating human disease by regulating NF-?B cell-signaling activity and had prevailed at trial. In Lilly’s appeal, the Appeals Court found that the four claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,410,516 (the “516 Patent”) asserted in this lawsuit are not valid due to inadequate written description, but the Appeals Court did not rule on other validity issues raised by Lilly or the findings of infringement. In addition, the Appeals Court affirmed the District Court’s ruling that the patent’s enforceability is not impaired by inequitable conduct in its prosecution.
