BRIEF—US court OKs $14 million for Gilead after Merck attorney's behavior

The Federal Circuit on Friday summarily affirmed a California federal judge’s decision to make Merck & Co pay Gilead Sciences $14 million in attorneys’ fees after it was uncovered that a Merck in-house attorney behaved so outrageously during patent prosecution that the court had to overturn a $200 million infringement verdict, according to Life Sciences Law360.

In 2016, a judge in the USA freed biotech major Gilead from having to pay $200 million over allegedly infringing the hepatitis C patents of Merck.

The judge told the court in San Jose, California, that some of this evidence was not trustworthy, and she therefore annulled the jury’s verdict.

In February this year, a US District court in Delaware rescinded a prior decision compelling Gilead Sciences to pay $2.5 billion in damages to Merck.