COURT RULES AGAINST IMCLONE IN PATENT LAWSUIT

ImClone Systems suffered a major legal defeat Sept. 18 when U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled that three Israeli scientists actually invented the cancer treatment the company sells under the trade name Erbitux.

The judge ordered the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to transfer the relevant patent (No. 6,217,866) into the names of the three Israeli scientists, Michael Sela, Esther Aboud-Pirak and Esther Hurwitz. The patent is currently registered to seven other scientists who have transferred their legal rights to ImClone and Aventis Pharmaceuticals, a co-defendant in the lawsuit.

The victor in the lawsuit is Yeda Research and Development, the commercial arm of Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, which holds the legal rights to the research the Israeli scientists did in the mid-to-late 1980s. The day after the court ruling, Amgen announced that it had licensed the patent from Yeda.

ImClone immediately announced it would appeal and said sales of Erbitux would not be affected. Bristol-Myers Squibb distributes the drug in the U.S.