Abbott Granted Rehearing on Patent Case

Abbott Laboratories was granted an en banc hearing from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this week in a patent case on glucose test strips. The hearing will be held to reconsider the Jan. 25 decision of a three-judge panel in which the court affirmed two decisions by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, both declaring that Abbott’s patents were invalid because of obviousness. Therasense, Inc. (now known as Abbott Diabetes Care, Inc.) and Abbott Laboratories v. Becton, Dickinson and Company et al., now consolidated, dates back to 2004.