In a significant upset, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a jury verdict that Kite Pharma, Inc.’s Yescarta infringed Juno Therapeutics Inc.’s chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy patent. The decision shows the difficulty in pursuing broad patents claiming the backbone of the technology and the need to describe all elements of claims.
Juno, now Bristol Myers Squibb Company, sued Kite, now a subsidiary of Gilead Sciences, Inc., claiming its use or sale of Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) infringed patent No. 7,446,190, which relates to a nucleic acid polymer encoding a three-part CAR for a T cell