Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. et al v. Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. et al

Filing 92

Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton: ORDER entered. MEMORANDUM AND ORDER: "In accordance with the foregoing, plaintiffs motion for preliminary injunction (Docket No. 18 is ALLOWED, and defendants are enjoined according to the terms of the Preliminary Injunction filed concurrently with this Order."(Moore, Kellyann)

United States District Court
District of Massachusetts
________________________________
)
MOMENTA PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.,
)
SANDOZ INC.,
)
Plaintiffs,
)
)
Civil Action No.
v.
)
11-11681-NMG
)
AMPHASTAR PHARMACEUTICALS, INC., )
INTERNATIONAL MEDICATION
)
SYSTEMS, LTD., WATSON
)
PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.,
)
Defendants.
)
________________________________ )
MEMORANDUM & ORDER
GORTON, J.
Plaintiffs Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Momenta”) and
Sandoz Inc. (collectively, “the plaintiffs”) bring suit against
Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Amphastar”), International
Medication Systems, Ltd. (“IMS”) and Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
(“Watson”) (collectively, “the defendants”) for patent
infringement.
The plaintiffs have moved for a preliminary injunction to
enjoin the defendants from launching their allegedly infringing
product.

This Court issued a temporary restraining order (“TRO”)

on October 7, 2011.

It now considers plaintiffs’ pending motion

for a preliminary injunction.

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I.

Factual Background
In July, 2010, plaintiffs began to market the first generic

enoxaparin sodium product in the United States.

Enoxaparin is an

anticoagulant used to prevent blood clots in the legs and other
parts of the body.

It is a kind of low molecular weight heparin

(“LMWH”) manufactured by cleaving raw heparin, which consists of
sugar chains (saccharides) of various lengths and composition,
into smaller sugar chains.

Heparin is also an anticoagulent, but

the therapeutic effects of LWMH are more lasting and predictable
than heparin.
To obtain approval from the United States Food and Drug
Administration (“FDA”) to market its generic enoxaparin product,
Momenta submitted an Abbreviated New Drug Application (“ANDA”) to
the FDA.

In an ANDA, a manufacturer must show that its generic

drug includes the same active ingredients as, and is
bioequivalent of, the drug it is copying.
In the case of enoxaparin, that showing is particularly
challenging due to the biochemical complexities of the product.
Generic enoxaparin sodium must have the same active ingredient as
Lovenox, its brand-name counterpart.

Unlike most traditional

drugs that have relatively simple chemical structures that are
easily characterized, it is much more difficult to demonstrate
the “sameness” of a generic enoxaparin product.

Given those

complexities, Sanofi-Aventis, the manufacturer of Lovenox,

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submitted a Citizen Petition to the FDA requesting that the FDA
withhold approval of any ANDA for a generic version of the drug
until enoxaparin had been fully characterized unless the
applicant was able to demonstrate 1) that its manufacturing
process was the equivalent of Sanofi’s own manufacturing process
or 2) equivalent safety and effectiveness through clinical
testing.
The FDA denied Sanofi’s request but recognized the
complicated scientific and regulatory issues attendant to
approval of generic enoxaparin.

It concluded that an ANDA

applicant for enoxaparin can establish sameness by meeting five
criteria: 1) the physical and chemical characteristics of
enoxaparin, 2) the nature of the source material and the method
used to break up the polysaccharide chains into smaller
fragments, 3) the nature and arrangement of components that
constitute enoxaparin, 4) certain laboratory measurements of
anticoagulant activity and 5) certain aspects of the drug’s
effect in humans.
To satisfy the third criterion, Momenta developed a set of
manufacturing control processes to ensure that each batch of its
generic product included the individual sugar chains
characteristic of enoxaparin.

Momenta is the assignee of two

patents which are directed to those processes, U.S. Patent No.
7,575,886 (“the ’886 patent”), issued in August, 2009, and U.S.

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Patent No. 7,790,466 (“the ’466 patent”), issued in September,
2010.

A particular batch of enoxaparin will not be finalized and

approved for sale until those processes confirm that the batch
contains a certain percentage of the unique sugars.
Plaintiffs filed the instant action two days after the FDA
approved defendant Amphastar’s ANDA for generic enoxaparin and
Watson issued a press release announcing that the companies would
launch the product in the fourth quarter of 2011 (which began
October 1, 2011).
II.

Procedural History
On September 21, 2011, the plaintiffs filed their complaint.

After service of process was returned executed by all defendants,
plaintiffs moved for a TRO and preliminary injunction to keep the
defendants from launching their allegedly infringing product.
Plaintiffs initially relied on publicly available information to
allege that there is a strong likelihood that defendants’
manufacturing process infringes the ’466 and ’886 patents.

They

also moved for limited, expedited discovery of documents
pertaining to the defendants’ ANDA.
After a hearing on October 7, 2011, the Court entered a TRO
enjoining defendants from advertising, offering for sale or
selling a generic enoxaparin product that allegedly infringes one
or more of the patents issued to Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
until the Court could conduct a preliminary injunction hearing on

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October 20, 2011.

Moreover, at the hearing itself, the Court

instructed plaintiffs to submit a short memorandum that further
narrowed their discovery request.
Five days after the TRO was entered, the defendants
submitted an emergency motion to modify or dissolve it.1

The

Court denied that motion following a hearing on October 14, 2011.
Also on that date, the Court allowed plaintiffs’ request for
limited, expedited discovery as modified in their supplemental
memorandum.

After obtaining such discovery, plaintiffs opted not

to pursue their claim of infringement with respect to the ’466
patent.
Before the Court is plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary
injunction based on alleged infringement of the ’886 patent.

The

Court heard oral argument on the motion on October 20, 2011.

The

following day, it extended the TRO for seven additional days in
order to review the issues in more depth.

Extensive briefing has

been submitted with respect to the motion, including an
opposition, reply and sur-reply briefs and five-page supplemental
memoranda submitted by each side on a discrete claim construction
issue.

1

Defendants also moved to dismiss or transfer the case.
Plaintiffs have opposed the motion to dismiss and have filed an
amended complaint which adds Watson Pharma, Inc., a subsidiary of
Watson, as a defendant.
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III. Analysis
A.

Motion for Preliminary Injunction

The decision to allow or deny a preliminary injunction is a
matter of discretion for the Court.
639, 642 (1st Cir. 1983).

LeBeau v. Spirito, 703 F.2d

To obtain injunctive relief, the

plaintiffs bear the burden of demonstrating:
1) a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, 2)
a significant risk of irreparable harm if the injunction
is withheld, 3) a favorable balance of hardships and 4)
a fit (or lack of friction) between the injunction and
the public interest.
Nieves-Márquez v. Puerto Rico, 353 F.3d 108, 120 (1st Cir. 2003)
(citation omitted).

No individual factor is dispositive.

Amazon.com, Inc. v. Barnesandnoble.com, Inc., 239 F.3d 1343, 1350
(Fed. Cir. 2001).

Instead, the court “must weigh and measure

each factor against the other factors and against the form and
magnitude of the relief requested.” Id.
1.

Likelihood of success on the merits

To establish likelihood of success on the merits, a patentee
must demonstrate that it will likely prove that its patent was
infringed and is valid.

See AstraZeneca LP v. Apotex, Inc., 633

F.3d 1042, 1050 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (citing Amazon.com, Inc. v.
Barnesandnoble.com, Inc., 239 F.3d 1343, 1350-51 (Fed. Cir.
2001)).

If an accused infringer raises a “substantial question”

regarding infringement or validity that the patentee has not
shown lacks “substantial merit”, a preliminary injunction should
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not issue.

Id.

Defendants argue that plaintiffs have not demonstrated a
likelihood of success on the merits because: 1) defendants do not
infringe the ’886 patent, 2) there are substantial questions as
to the validity of that patent, 3) plaintiffs’ claims are barred
by the safe harbor provision of the Hatch-Waxman Act, 35 U.S.C. §
271(e)(1), and 4) there are serious questions regarding personal
jurisdiction and venue (as raised in defendants’ motion to
dismiss).

Each of these arguments will be considered in turn.
a.

Infringement

Determining infringement requires the Court to conduct a
two-step analysis 1) to determine the meaning and scope of the
asserted patent claims and 2) to compare the properly construed
claims to the process accused of infringing.

Purdue Pharma L.P.

v. Boehringer Ingelheim GMBH, 237 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir.
2001).

At the preliminary injunction stage, a district court

need not conclusively and finally interpret the claims at issue.
See id.

Its conclusions at this juncture are subject to change

upon the ultimate trial on the merits.

Id.

The patented methods in the ’886 patent involve
identification of a non-naturally occurring sugar that arises
when enoxaparin is made.

Specifically, the sugar arises when a

sample is “exhaustively digested” (broken down into small subchains) by using two or more heparin-degrading enzymes.

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The

sugar includes a signature 1,6-anhydro ring structure that does
not normally exist in heparin.

A manufacturer of enoxaparin must

be able to identify that structure and determine its quantity in
a given sample to ensure that the sample is, in fact, enoxaparin
that conforms to the requisite standards.

A reference standard

for enoxaparin is set by the U.S. Pharmacopia (“USP”) Monograph
and enforced by the FDA.

It requires that between 15% and 25% of

the sugar chains in a batch of enoxaparin include, at their
reducing ends, a sugar containing the 1,6-anhydro ring structure.
Claims 6, 15 and 53 of the ’886 patent describe how to
analyze a sample of enoxaparin to ensure its conformity to the
USP Monograph standard.

The process involves, first, determining

the presence and amount of a non-naturally occurring sugar in the
batch and, second, comparing the amount of non-naturally
occurring sugar in the sample to the USP Monograph reference
standard.

Claims 6, 15 and 53 include the following limitations:

1) providing an enoxaparin sample that has been exhaustively
digested with two or more heparin degrading enzymes, 2) using a
separation method to determine the presence of a structural
signature associated with the non-naturally occurring sugar
associated with peak 9 of Fig. 1, 3) making a determination about
the enoxaparin sample by comparing the information gathered to
the USP reference standard in order to 4) assess the quality of
the sample (Claim 6), assess the level of non-naturally occurring

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sugar in the sample (Claim 15) or select an appropriate batch
(Claim 53).
Whether defendants infringe the second limitation of these
claims is the essence of the parties’ dispute.

That alleged

infringement, in turn, depends on how broadly the claim term
“separation method” is construed.

The parties agree that the

ordinary meaning of the term to a person skilled in the art would
include two separation techniques known as Capillary
Electrophoresis (“CE”) and High Pressure Liquid Chromatography
(“HPLC”), among others.

Plaintiffs contend the ordinary meaning

should control, whereas defendants contend that the context of
the patent makes clear that the term has a more limited meaning
and refers only to CE.
The construction of the term is crucial to the infringement
issue because defendants’ testing process uses HPLC but otherwise
performs all the steps of the disputed claims.

The parties agree

that if the separation method in claims 6, 15 and 53 does not
cover HPLC, there is no infringement of the ’886 patent by the
defendants.

Thus, the Court will proceed to construe the term

conditionally, mindful that a construction at this preliminary
stage is subject to revision later in the litigation.

See Jack

Guttman, Inc. v. Kopykake Enters., Inc., 302 F.3d 1352, 1361
(Fed. Cir. 2002).
For the reasons stated below, the Court concludes that “a

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separation method” includes both CE and HPLC and that defendants
have failed to raise a substantial question regarding the
validity of the ’886 patent.

Thus, the plaintiffs have succeeded

in showing a likelihood of success on the merits.
i.

Principles of Claim Construction

Claim construction is a question of law for the court.
Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F.3d 967, 979 (Fed.
Cir. 1997) (en banc), aff'd, 517 U.S. 370 (1996).

The objective

of claim construction is to ascertain the meaning that a person
of ordinary skill in the art would give to the terms in dispute
at the time of the filing of the patent application.

Wiener v.

NEC Elec., Inc., 102 F.3d 534, 539 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (abrogated on
other grounds).

The meaning of the terms are initially discerned

from three sources of intrinsic evidence: (1) the claims
themselves, (2) the specification and (3) the prosecution history
of the patent.

See Vitronics Corp. v. Conceptronic, Inc., 90

F.3d 1576, 1582–83 (Fed. Cir. 1996).

If the intrinsic evidence

is inadequate to resolve the meaning of a disputed term, the
Court should consider extrinsic evidence such as inventor and
expert testimony, treatises and technical writings.

Phillips v.

AWK Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc).
The patent claims themselves define the scope of the
patented invention.

See Philips, 415 F.3d at 1312 (“It is a

bedrock principle of patent law that the claims of a patent

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define the invention to which the patentee is entitled the right
to exclude.” (internal quotation omitted)).

Claim terms are

generally given their “ordinary and customary meaning”, which is
the meaning that a person skilled in the art would attribute to
the claim term.

See id. at 1312-13.

Even if a particular term

has an ordinary and customary meaning, however, a court may need
to examine the patent as a whole to determine if that meaning
controls.

Id. at 1313 (“[A] person of ordinary skill in the art

is deemed to read the claim term not only in the context of the
particular claim in which the disputed term appears, but in the
context of the entire patent, including the specification.”); see
also Medrad, Inc. v. MRI Devices Corp., 401 F.3d 1313, 1319 (Fed.
Cir. 2005) (noting that a court cannot construe the ordinary
meaning of a term “in a vacuum”).

Ultimately, the correct

construction will be one that “stays true to the claim language
and most naturally aligns with the patent's description of the
invention ....”

Id. at 1316 (citation omitted).
ii.

“Separation Method”

As an initial matter, the Court notes that the “separation
method” in each of Claims 6, 15 and 53 is
to determine ... the presence of a structural signature
associated with the non-naturally occurring sugar
associated with peak 9 of FIG. 1.
Figure 1 is a CE electropherogram of an enoxaparin sample.

Its

various peaks correspond to different structures of the sample.

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The unique 1,6-anhydro ring structure is what the method is
intended to detect.

The patent does not explicitly identify that

structure because it was unknown at the time the patent
application was filed.

Instead, the patent identifies that

structure by its association with peak 9 of Fig. 1.
According to the defendants, the claims are limited, by
their own terms, to a CE separation method due to the “associated
with peak 9 of Fig. 1" limitation.

Defendants contend that

identifying and separating a sugar that is only known by its
association with peak 9 requires literal reproduction of figure
1, which was generated via CE.

An HPLC chromatogram of

enoxaparin, they contend, would not yield peak 9.

One skilled in

the art thus could not necessarily verify that a sugar associated
with a particular HPLC peak was the same as the sugar associated
with peak 9 of figure 1.
The Court finds defendants’ arguments unpersuasive.

The

manner in which the patent identifies the pertinent structural
signature does not limit the term ”separation method” to CE.

A

person skilled in the art would understand that the structural
signature is “associated” with peak 9 insofar as the peak
indicates the structure is present.

That relationship is the

focus of the description, not the method of analysis that was
used to arrive at peak 9.

A person skilled in the art would

understand that he or she could detect a similar anomolous peak

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by a parallel analysis using a different but similar separation
technique such as HPLC, a technique that is in fact discussed in
the patent.
The Court agrees with plaintiffs that the doctrine of claim
construction undermines defendants’ contention that the term
should be construed more narrowly than its ordinary meaning would
suggest.

Under that doctrine, there is a rebuttable presumption

that different claims in a patent are different in scope.

See

Amgen, Inc. v. Hoechst Marion Roussel, Inc., 314 F.3d 1313, 1326
(Fed. Cir. 2003).

When analyzing independent and dependent

claims, “the presence of a dependent claim that adds a particular
limitation gives rise to a presumption that the limitation in
question is not present in the independent claim.”

Enzo Biochem,

Inc. v. Applera Corp., 599 F.3d 1325, 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2010)
(internal citation omitted); see also Sunrace Roots Enter. Co. v.
SRAM Corp., 336 F.3d 1298, 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2003).

That

presumption is especially strong “where the limitation that is
sought to be ‘read into’ an independent claim already appears in
a dependent claim.”

Liebel-Flarsheim Co. v. Medrad, Inc., 358

F.3d 898, 910 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
Plaintiffs state that claims 54 and 56, both of which depend
on claim 6, require the use of HPLC and CE, respectively, to

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determine the presence of the claimed structural signature.2
Given the presumption that a dependent claim is narrower than the
claim upon which it depends, they argue that CE is merely a subcategory of the claimed separation method.

Plaintiffs add that

limiting “a separation method” to CE would render claim 56
superfluous and redundant.

See Manchak v. Chem. Waste Mgmt.,

Inc., No. 98-cv-1530, 1999 WL 1103364, at *4 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 6,
1999) (“Under the doctrine of claim differentiation, a claim
should not ordinarily be construed in such a manner that would
render a related dependent claim superfluous.”).
As defendants point out, however, there appears to be some
inconsistency between the meaning of the term “is determined” in
the dependent claims and the term “to determine” in the
independent claims.

In dependent claims 54, 56 and 59, the

structural signature “is determined” using a separation
technique.

In dependent claims 55, 57, 58 and 60, however, the

structural signature “is determined” through NMR or other mass
spectrometry techniques which are not separation methods.

2

Those

Those claims are as follows:

54. The method of claims 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 20
or 43, wherein the structural signature is determined
using ... [HPLC].
...
56. The method of claims 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15,
20, 43, 49 or 53, wherein the structural signature is
determined using CE.
’886 patent, 70:30-32 and 36-38.
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techniques could be used to analyze a structural signature only
in an already-separated sample and are described in the
specification as techniques that may be used in combination with
a separation technique to derive additional structural
information or to corroborate findings with respect to the
structural signature.

See, e.g., ’886 patent, 7:55-60; 34:5-14;

47:62-65.
Despite the inconsistency, the Court finds that a person
skilled in the art would understand that dependent claims 54, 56
and 59 provide specific examples of technology that may be used
to perform the “separation method” in the independent claims upon
which they depend.

The use of the word “wherein” in the

dependent claims indicates that they are further qualifications
of “a separation method” rather than different or additional
steps.

Syntactically, the specific techniques claimed could only

refer back to the phrase “using a separation method to determine
... the presence of a structural signature ....”

If the

techniques in dependent claims 55, 57, 58 and 60 cannot, in fact,
function as a “separate method,” those claims may be invalid on
their own terms.
Defendants further contend that their proposed limited
construction aligns with the patent’s written description which
not only states that CE is the method of a preferred embodiment
but repeatedly distinguishes CE as a superior separation method

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to HPLC.

See, e.g., ’886 patent, 4:32-48 (stating that HPLC is

often insufficient for analyzing heparins); 33:53-34:24 (listing
several reasons why CE is superior to HPLC in oligosaccharide
analysis); 47:40-48:9 (stating that HPLC is often insufficient
for analyzing heparins and discussing advantages of CE).

On the

basis of plaintiffs’ expressed preference, defendants argue that
the Court should construe the patented separation method to
exclude HPLC.

See Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1316 (“[T]he

specification may reveal an intentional disclaimer, or disavowal,
of claim scope by the inventor.”).
The Court is not convinced that the language in the
specification amounts to a disclaimer of HPLC as a separation
method.

The ordinary meaning of “a separation method” includes

HPLC and the patentee specifically claims HPLC as a separation
method in dependent claim 54.

Although the discussion in the

specification of HPLC vis-á-vis CE makes clear that CE is the
preferred separation method, there is no assertion that HPLC
cannot be used to perform the claimed methods.

On the contrary,

a preferred embodiment includes use of that method to determine
the structural signature.

See ’886 patent, 7:55-67.

The written

description, therefore, neither limits the scope of the claims as
defendants suggest nor amounts to an express disclaimer of HPLC.
See Epistar Corp. v. Int’l Trade Comm'n, 566 F.3d 1321, 1335-36
(Fed. Cir. 2009) (“[A] discussion of the shortcomings of certain

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techniques is not a disavowal of the use of those techniques in a
manner consistent with the claimed invention.”).
Finally, defendants argue that the plaintiffs are estopped
from claiming that a “separation method” includes HPLC due to the
prosecution history of the patent.

Defendants contend that the

addition of the “associated with peak 9 of FIG 1" limitation was
included to overcome the examiner’s rejection of the claim on the
grounds of the Linhardt et al. (“Linhardt”) prior art, which
disclosed HPLC, but not the Desai et al. (“Desai”) prior art,
which disclosed CE.
That argument is tenuous, at best, and is not compelling.
The PTO did not discuss its decision to withdraw its rejection
based upon the Linhardt reference.

Rather, it stated that

plaintiffs’ arguments regarding its rejection based on that
reference had been considered but were moot in light of new
grounds of rejection.

Plaintiffs’ arguments had focused on how

the prior art, including Linhardt, did not suggest the very
existence of the non-naturally occurring sugar associated with
peak 9 that the various analytical methods should look for in a
given enoxaparin sample.

At no point did plaintiffs claim that

the patent was limited to a single separation method or that it
did not use HPLC as claimed in Linhardt.
At this juncture, therefore, the Court concludes that “a
separation method” includes both HPLC and CE.

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Because

defendants’ testing process uses HPLC and otherwise performs all
the steps of the disputed claims, the plaintiffs have established
a likelihood of infringement.
b.

Validity

Defendants have alleged that the two patents-in-suit are
invalid for obviousness and indefiniteness.

At the preliminary

injunction stage, the Court need not resolve the validity
question but rather must assess “the persuasiveness of the
challenger's evidence, recognizing that it is doing so without
all evidence that may come out at trial.”

See Titan Tire Corp.

v. Case New Holland, Inc., 566 F.3d 1372, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2009).
If the alleged infringer successfully raises a “substantial
question” regarding a patent’s validity, the patentee must
persuade the court that, despite the challenge presented to
validity, it is nevertheless likely to succeed at trial on the
validity issue.

Id.
i.

Obviousness

An invention is invalid for obviousness under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a)
if the differences between the subject matter sought to
be patented and the prior art are such that the subject
matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the
invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in
the art ....
To assess whether an invention is obvious, a court must consider:
(1) the scope and content of the prior art, (2) the differences

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between the prior art and the claims at issue, (3) the level of
ordinary skill in the art and (4) any relevant secondary
considerations, including commercial success, long felt but
unsolved needs and the failure of others to invent.

Graham v.

John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17-18 (1966).
Defendants assert that Claims 6, 15 and 53 of the ’886
patent are invalid as obvious on the basis of two prior art
references, Desai et al. (1993) and Sasisekharan et al. (1990),
both of which were considered by the patent examiner during
prosecution.

The examiner initially rejected Claim 331, which

encompassed most of Claims 6, 15 and 53, as anticipated and
obvious in light of those references.

That rejection was

eventually overcome when plaintiffs added certain limitations
directed at the practical uses of their invention taught by the
patent, including: determining the quality of the sample (Claim
6), determining the level of non-naturally occurring sugar in the
sample (Claim 15) and selecting an appropriate batch (Claim 53).
Defendants contend that those added limitations would have been
obvious to a person skilled in the art because, as enoxaparin is
an FDA controlled drug, anyone skilled in the art would know to
use such standard tests for quality-control purposes.
Defendants’ arguments are largely conclusory and fail to
raise a substantial question relative to validity.

The Court

notes that the burden of showing invalidity is “especially

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difficult” when “the infringer attempts to rely on prior art that
was before the patent examiner during prosecution.”

Glaxo Grp.

Ltd. v. Apotex, Inc., 376 F.3d 1339, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2004).

As

discussed previously, the plaintiffs overcame many of the
examiner’s objections by emphasizing that the prior art did not
disclose identifying the presence of a non-naturally occurring
sugar characteristic of enoxaparin that is not found in raw
heparin or other LMWHs.

Furthermore, the prior art did not

suggest incorporating use of the final limitations of each claim
which are directed to use of the methods in a manufacturing
process.

Indeed, at the time the patent application was filed in

2003, no standard analytical test was in place.

Defendants’

evidence of obviousness is therefore insufficient to contradict
the findings of the examiner.
ii.

Indefiniteness

Defendants also argue that the claims are invalid for
indefiniteness.

A claim is definite if one skilled in the art

would understand the bounds of the claim when read in light of
the specification.

See 35 U.S.C. § 112.

A claim is indefinite

if a claim is “insolubly ambiguous” such that “reasonable efforts
at claim construction prove futile.”

Exxon Research & Eng’g Co.

v. United States, 265 F.3d 1371, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2010).

On the

other hand,
Even if it is a formidable task to understand a claim, and
the result not unanimously accepted, as long as the
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boundaries of a claim may be understood it is sufficiently
clear to avoid invalidity for indefiniteness.
Invitogen Corp. v. Biocrest Mfg., L.P., 424 F.3d 1374, 1383 (Fed.
Cir. 2005) (internal quotation omitted).
Defendants’ arguments of indefiniteness echo their claim
construction arguments which the Court has already rejected.

In

defendants’ view, the disputed claims are indefinite because,
although each includes the limitation “a non-naturally occurring
sugar associated with peak 9 of FIG 1", the patent nowhere
specifies how to reproduce Fig. 1.

The defendants add that if,

as plaintiffs contend, the claims are broad enough to cover an
HPLC separation method, they are “hopelessly indefinite” because
Fig. 1 is a CE, not an HPLC, spectrograph.
As stated previously, one skilled in the art would
understand the scope of the relevant claim limitation.

He or she

would understand that the sugar associated with peak 9 of Figure
1 corresponds to a different anomolous peak in a graph generated
under a parallel analysis, whether that graph was generated by CE
or a different but similar separation method such as HPLC (a
method discussed in the patent and the prior art).

See generally

’886 patent, 6:57-10:27; see also Epistar Corp. v. Int’l Trade
Comm'n, 566 F.3d 1321, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (“[A]n applicant is
not required to describe in the specification every conceivable
and possible future embodiment of his invention.”).

Furthermore,

the specification, and the prior art references incorporated
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therein, provide sufficient instruction on how to reproduce the
specific CE test that resulted in Figure 1 of the patent.

See

’886 patent, 27:26-31; 33:9-17; 47:54-65; 48:50-49:20; 62:47-60.
Thus, defendants have failed to raise a substantial question that
the patent is invalid for indefiniteness.
c.

Safe Harbor Provision of Hatch-Waxman

Defendants contend that, even if they were deemed to
infringe the ’886 patent, their allegedly infringing activity
falls squarely within the safe harbor provision of the HatchWaxman Act, 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(1).

That provision provides:

It shall not be an act of infringement to make, use,
offer to sell or sell ... a patented invention ... solely
for uses reasonably related to the development and
submission of information under a federal law which
regulates the manufacture, use or sale of drugs ....
35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(1).
The Supreme Court has held that the provision protects the
use of patented inventions so long as the use is “reasonably
related to the development and submission of any information”
under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Merck KGaA v.

Integra Lifesciences I, Ltd., 545 U.S. 193, 201 (2005).

The

Court has stated that there is
no room in the statute for excluding certain information
from the exemption on the basis of the phase of research
in which it is developed or the particular submission in
which it could be included.
Id.
Defendants contend that, if they did use Momenta’s patented
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testing methods, it would be 1) to meet FDA requirements and 2)
to provide the FDA with documentation of after-market approval
quality control testing.

Compiling data to submit to the FDA

using the claimed testing methods, they assert, would be
reasonably related to developing and submitting information to
the FDA and therefore not infringing under the safe harbor
provision.
Defendants’ argument is unavailing because, although the
safe harbor provision permits otherwise infringing activity that
is conducted to obtain regulatory approval of a product, it does
not permit a generic manufacturer to continue in that otherwise
infringing activity after obtaining such approval:
[T]he only activity which will be permitted by the
[provision] is a limited amount of testing so that
generic manufacturers can establish the bioequivalency of
a generic substitute .... [T]he generic manufacturer is
not permitted to market the patented drug during the life
of the patent; all that the generic can do is test the
drug for purposes of submitting data to the FDA for
approval.
See Classen Immunotherapies, Inc. v. Biogen IDEC, 2011 WL
3835409, at *12-13 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 31, 2011) (quoting H.R. Rep.
No. 98–857, at 8 (1984)).
Here, the alleged infringing activity involves use of
plaintiffs’ patented quality control testing methods on each
commercial batch of enoxaparin that will be sold after FDA
approval.

Thus, it is not exempted under § 271(e)(1).

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d.

Jurisdictional issues

The jurisdictional questions that defendants’ raise in their
motion to dismiss are not so substantial as to affect the Court’s
analysis of the motion for a preliminary injunction.

Defendants

market their product to the national pharmaceutical market, and
certain defendants have subsidiaries located in Massachusetts.
It appears likely that the Court has either general or specific
personal jurisdiction over defendants in this matter.

The Court

will entertain the defendants’ jurisdictional arguments in more
depth at a later time.
2.

Irreparable Harm

A finding of irreparable harm is dependent upon whether a
patent owner has an adequate remedy at law if a preliminary
injunction is not granted.

“[A] presumption of irreparable harm

arises when a patentee makes a clear showing that a patent is
valid and that it is infringed.”

High Tech Med. Instrumentation,

Inc. v. New Image Indus., Inc., 49 F.3d 1551, 1556 (Fed. Cir.
1995).

Absent such a showing, however, that presumption is

unavailable and a patent holder must offer specific evidence of
irreparable harm.

See id.

In view of plaintiffs’ showing of infringement and validity,
the Court applies the presumption of irreparable harm in this
case.

Even in the absence of such a showing, however, plaintiffs

have submitted sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the

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marketing of defendants’ product will cause them immediate and
long-term irreparable harm.

That harm would likely involve price

erosion, lost market share, loss of market capitalization,
reputational injury and threats to both the funding of ongoing
research development and the hiring and retention of critical
scientific talent.
Sandoz currently markets the only generic enoxaparin.

It

competes for sales only with Sanofi-Aventis, the maker of the
brand-name product, Lovenox.

Plaintiffs contend that market

entry by defendants would cause an immediate and significant
reduction in the price Sandoz can charge for enoxaparin which, in
turn, would permanently alter customers’ price expectations.

See

Polymer Techs., Inc. v. Bridwell, 103 F.3d 970, 976 (Fed. Cir.
1996) (“Requiring purchasers to pay higher prices after years of
paying lower prices to infringers is not a reliable business
option.”).
Plaintiffs add that under the plaintiffs’ collaboration
agreement, entry of a competing product into the market would
mean that Momenta’s royalty on the Sandoz profits from the sale
of generic enoxaparin would be drastically reduced.

The decline

in prices and market share coupled with the contractual
limitation would purportedly have a devastating impact on
Momenta’s revenues.

That, in turn, would cripple Momenta’s long-

term ability to continue funding ongoing research efforts and to

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retain or recruit top scientific talent.
Finally, plaintiffs contend that generic enoxaparin is
Momenta’s only product and the cornerstone of its success and
reputation as an innovator.

The harm that would ensue if

defendant’s product is introduced to the market is not,
plaintiffs assert, merely speculative: just the announcement that
the FDA had approved Amphastar’s generic enoxaparin ANDA
apparently caused Momenta’s stock price to decline by more than
30%.

Plaintiffs allege that the investment community reacted by

downgrading its analysis of Momenta and questioning the inherent
value of its core technology.

Defendant’s launch, they contend,

would place further pressure on Momenta’s stock price and further
damage Momenta’s standing in the investment community.
Defendants respond that plaintiffs’ harms are entirely
calculable and compensable by money damages.

They contend that

plaintiffs’ own pleadings demonstrate that the losses are
quantifiable, even if somewhat difficult to measure, insofar as
plaintiffs calculate the impact on company revenues of 1) stock
price decline, 2) lost royalties and 3) loss of market share.
They further contend that inability to reinvest profits in
research and development is not irreparable harm and cannot
justify injunctive relief.
Although some of plaintiffs’ potential for harm is
quantifiable, its allegations of price erosion, reputational

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injury and loss of goodwill likely are not.

Defendants have

failed to rebut the presumption of irreparable harm and
plaintiffs have demonstrated the sort of market loss and
reputational harm that constitute evidence of irreparable harm.
See, e.g., Abbott Labs. v. Sandoz, Inc., 544 F.3d 1341, 1361-62
(Fed. Cir. 2008) (likelihood of market share and revenue loss
upon competitor’s entry into market supported finding of
irreparable harm); Glaxo Grp., 64 Fed. Appx. at 756 (likelihood
that generic entry “would affect not only price and profit but
also cause a significant loss in market share” supported finding
of irreparable harm); Bio-Tech. Gen. Corp. v. Genentech, Inc., 80
F.3d 1553, 1566 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (likelihood of loss of revenue,
goodwill, and research and development activity upon competitor’s
entry into market supported finding of irreparable harm). But see
Eli Lilly & Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 82 F.3d 1568, 1578-79
(Fed. Cir. 1996) (finding no irreparable harm where money damages
was a sufficient remedy and “calculating lost profits would be a
relatively simple task”).
3.

Balance of Hardships

To assess the balance of hardships, the Court must determine
whether the threatened injury to the patent owner, in light of
the strength of the showing of likelihood of success on the
merits, outweighs the harm that a preliminary injunction may
inflict on the accused infringer.

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Holmes Prods. Corp. v.

Catalina Lighting, Inc., 67 F. Supp. 2d 10, 14 (D. Mass. 1999)
(citing H.H. Robertson, Co. v. United Steel Deck, Inc., 820 F.2d
384, 390 (Fed. Cir. 1987)).
Plaintiffs have alleged that the defendants are large,
multi-product companies that will face only monetary harm if
enjoined.

By contrast, plaintiffs assert that they are a single

product company whose potential harm, as discussed above, is far
broader and more serious.
Defendants counter that Amphastar and IMS are “far from
being the large multi-product companies that plaintiffs
disingenuously claim them to be.”

Enoxaparin is not one of a

portfolio of many products but rather a product upon which
Amphastar’s success depends.

They have invested heavily to

develop and introduce this product to the marketplace, and “every
penny of revenue is required to make the company secure and
assure its future.”

The TRO alone purportedly cost the

defendants millions of dollars in lost sales, lost contractual
opportunities and reputational harm.

In a market with three

participants, defendants contend, a preliminary injunction would
cost Amphastar an estimated average of $7 million per week.
Defendants add that each defendant’s reputation is also at
stake.

Amphastar has allegedly already “fielded questions from

potential customers” regarding its ability to supply enoxaparin
in light of the instant lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Watson’s reputation

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as “a consistent and timely supplier” in the pharmaceutical
industry is in jeopardy.
Given plaintiffs’ showing of likelihood of success on the
merits, the balance of hardship tips in their favor.

While

defendants’ harm appears almost entirely monetary (albeit, with
very substantial sums at stake), plaintiffs face significant
damage in the form of price erosion and loss of customer goodwill, as noted above.

Those kinds of harm cannot be fully

compensated by money damages.

See Glaxo Grp., 64 Fed. Appx. at

756 (finding balance of harms in patent holder’s favor after
comparing patentee’s potential for lost patent value and generic
competitor’s inability to enter the market and begin earning
profits).

Defendants’ loss of profits can be secured by the

posting of a significant bond to protect defendants in the event
the patent is later found to be invalid or otherwise not
infringed.
4.

Public Interest

Finally, the Court must consider whether the granting of a
preliminary injunction will serve or disserve the public
interest.

Protecting rights secured by valid patents is an

important public interest, Smith Int'l, Inc. v. Hughes Tool Co.,
718 F.2d 1573, 1581 (Fed. Cir. 1983), but the focus of the
Court's inquiry is whether “there exists some critical public
interest that would be injured by the grant of preliminary

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relief.”

Holmes Prods., 67 F. Supp. 2d at 14 (internal quotation

and citation omitted).
Defendants cite the general public benefit of lower drug
costs, particularly at a time of drug shortages and rising health
care costs.

That benefit does not, however, outweigh protection

of plaintiffs’ patent rights, in which they have invested talent,
time and money.

Abbott Labs., 544 F.3d at 1363 (patent law

promotes significant public interest in drug development by
offering inventors incentives “to risk the often enormous costs
in terms of time, research, and development”).

Granting

preliminary injunctive relief in this matter will serve the
public interest and will not unduly stifle competition.
ORDER
In accordance with the foregoing, plaintiffs’ motion for
preliminary injunction (Docket No. 18) is ALLOWED, and defendants
are enjoined according to the terms of the Preliminary Injunction
filed concurrently with this Order.

So ordered.
/s/ Nathaniel M. Gorton
Nathaniel M. Gorton
United States District Judge
Dated October 28, 2011

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