Cox-2

University Prepares Supreme Court Request

The University was preparing this summer to ask the Supreme Court to review Rochester’s effort to enforce its patent for a class of pain relievers known as cox-2 inhibitors.

That’s after the U.S. Court of Appeals in July declined, by a 7–5 vote, to have the full court hear Rochester’s appeal on the validity of the patent. In February, a three-judge panel of that court upheld a lower court ruling that the University’s patent, issued in 2000, was invalid.

“This is obviously disappointing, although the fact that there were five separate opinions written confirms the view that this is a major issue of patent law,” President Jackson said this summer.

The case stems from 1992, when Rochester filed an application to protect the work of a Medical Center team led by biochemist Donald Young. The University researchers discovered the gene that contains the chemical instructions for producing the enzyme cox-2 and pinpointed the enzyme’s role in causing inflammation.

The University had filed an infringement lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which makes the popular cox-2 inhibitor Celebrex.