Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc. - Podcast

In Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., the Supreme Court will address the level of deference the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit must give to a trial court’s interpretation of patent claims.

In 1996, the Supreme Court stated that patent claim construction was “exclusively within the province of the court.” Two years later, the Federal Circuit held, en banc, that the proper standard of review for district court claim constructions is de novo review, extending to related fact-based questions, in Cybor Corporation v. FAS Technologies. Since that time, the use of the de novo standard has been widely criticized. Recently, in the Lighting Ballast Control LLC v. Philips Electronics N.A. Corp. case, the Federal Circuit took another look at this issue, but affirmed the use of the de novo standard, finding no compelling reason to depart from its 15-year precedent.

Now the Supreme Court will have the opportunity to decide whether the Federal Circuit’s longstanding use of the de novo standard of review for patent claim construction is wrong. Specifically, the question before the Court is whether a district court’s factual finding in support of its construction of a patent claim term may be reviewed de novo, as per Federal Circuit precedent, or only for clear error, as per Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 52(a).

• Prof. Kristen Osenga, Professor of Law, University of Richmond School of Law