US Court Favors Moderna In COVID-19 Vaccine Patent Infringement Case With Arbutus Biopharma

A U.S. appeals court affirmed a decision to cancel an Arbutus Biopharma Corporation ABUS patent related to a legal fight over Moderna Inc's MRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tribunal's ruling that the patent for Arbutus' lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology was invalid based on an earlier Arbutus patent that disclosed the same invention.
Moderna challenged the patent at the PTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board in 2018, Reuters reported, and the board invalidated it in 2019.
The Federal Circuit's decision does not affect an ongoing lawsuit Arbutus and Genevant Sciences filed against Moderna last year in Delaware for allegedly infringing other related LNP patents.
Last year in February, Arbutus and Genevant sued Moderna for infringing on their patent on a lipid nanoparticle platform that they say was crucial to delivering Moderna's widely-used COVID-19 vaccine.
The companies seek compensation.
Arbutus separately sued Pfizer Inc PFE and BioNTech SE BNTX for patent infringement of five US patents last week over their COVID-19 shots.
Price Action: ABUS shares are down 1.03% at $2.88, and MRNA shares are up 0.30% at $155.72 on the last check Wednesday.
Image by Okan Caliskan from Pixabay