In State of West Virginia v. Pfizer Inc. et al., District of West Virginia Judge Robert C. Chambers remanded, at West Virginia’s request, the state’s case alleging that Pfizer entered an anti-competitive settlement of a patent dispute with a generic Lipitor manufacturer and engaged in other anticompetitive conduct designed to delay the generic’s introduction into the market. The state originally filed in West Virginia state court alleging violations of the state’s antitrust and consumer protection laws. Defendants removed the case, but the federal court remanded because it found no federal claim for relief.
The suit alleges that the defendants anticompetitively delayed the entry of generic Lipitor by (1) filing a fraudulent, duplicate patent application, (2) lodging sham patent infringement litigation against the generic manufacturer, and (3) settling the patent dispute with an anti-competitive “pay-for-delay” agreement.
The court rejected the defendants’ argument that federal issues were triggered by the relevance of Pfizer’s patent to the case. “Because none of the theories in support of [the state’s] claims necessarily raises substantial questions of patent or other federal law,” Judge Chambers ruled, the claims do not arise under federal law.” As a result, the court was compelled to remand because it lacked jurisdiction.
The court also rejected the argument that the case was effectively a class action removable under diversity jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act.
Similar claims are currently being litigated in multi-district litigation in a New Jersey federal court.
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