Takeda Canada Inc. v. Canada (Health), 2015 FC 570
May 1, 2015
Christopher Van Barr, Kiernan Murphy and William Boyer for the Applicant
Andrew Brodkin, Richard Nailberg and Jenene Roberts for the Respondent
Takeda brought an application for an order prohibiting Apotex from making a generic form of Omnaris ciclesonide, a nasal spray to treat conditions such as allergic rhinitis. Apotex made several allegations of invalidity in its NOA, including anticipation, obviousness, double-patenting, lack of utility, sufficiency and overbreadth. The Court found that all three patents in issue were invalid for obviousness and did not consider any of the other allegations. In every patent the Court preferred evidence from the Respondent experts, and decided that in light of the prior art available at the time, an ordinary person skilled in the art would have arrived at the invention set out in the patent. It was noted that even if there were gaps between the prior art and the patent, no inventive step was required to bridge this gap.
By: Tracey Doyle, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP