Cooley Defeats Patent Infringement Suit for Vifor

Washington, DC – August 27, 2024– Cooley successfully defeated a patent infringement suit for its client Vifor (International) AG, a pioneer in iron deficiency and anemia therapies.

Cooley represents Vifor in a patent infringement suit filed by Biofer concerning Vifor’s active pharmaceutical ingredient used in the production of Injectafer, an iron-carbohydrate complex used to treat anemia. In May 2022, Biofer asserted that the process Vifor uses to make the active pharmaceutical ingredient for Injectafer infringes multiple claims from its US Patent No. 8,759,320 and sought damages exceeding $100 million. Central to Biofer’s allegations were its assertion that Vifor performs its process at a “pH between 7.0 to 9.0,” a limitation in all asserted claims. 

Seeking as broad a construction as possible, Biofer argued during claim construction that the phrase “pH between 7.0 and 9.0” requires only the process be within that range for any period of time. In contrast, based on the claims, specification, and file history, the district court agreed with Vifor’s proposed construction and construed the phrase to mean “a pH maintained in the interval separating 7.0 and 9.0.” 

On August 27, 2024, Judge Ann M. Donnelly of US District Court for the Eastern District of New York signed an order wherein Biofer conceded it could not prevail on infringement and entered a stipulation of noninfringement based on the claim construction.

Read the order 

The Cooley intellectual property (IP) litigation team representing Vifor was led by IP litigation partners Sanya Sukduang and Jonathan Davies, with support from cyber/data/privacy partner Tiana Demas and IP litigation associates John Habibi and Bonnie Fletcher Price.

The case is Biofer S.p.A v Vifor (International) AG (case no.: 1:22-cv-02180).

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