ARIAD V LILLY, PART II: THE NEXT BIG PATENT BATTLE

The bell's about to sound for the next round in a patent fight that the entire pharmaceutical industry is watching. Next week the biotechnology firm Ariad Pharmaceuticals and the big drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co. head back to court in a fight over a patent that Ariad claims gives it rights to a drug pathway. The pathway is the specific way a drug works in the human body. This is a highly unusual case since patents tend to cover a drug's composition, not the way it affects the body.
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