Appeals Court Upholds Invalidity of Acorda’s Ampyra Patents

A federal appeals court Monday upheld a lower court ruling that invalidated four Acorda Therapeutics patents for the multiple sclerosis drug Ampyra (dalfampridine).

In March 2017, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware threw out four of five Acorda patents as obvious in response to a challenge from generic drugmaker Hikma Pharmaceuticals. On Monday, a three-member Federal Circuit panel affirmed the lower court’s ruling 2 to 1.

The panel rejected Acorda’s argument that the lower court failed to consider the claimed inventions as a whole. “The court did not overlook any meaningful argument by Acorda that certain aggregations of claim elements, including the whole, required analysis beyond the analysis of the walking-benefit, dosage, stability, and serum-level aspects of the claims,” the opinion states.