Decline in pay-for-delay deals using side and no-AG commitments, FTC finds

A new US Federal Trade Commission staff report found that, despite a considerable increase in the total number of final Hatch-Waxman patent settlements in fiscal year  2016, significantly fewer settlements included the types of reverse payments that are likely to be anticompetitive.

This report is the Bureau of Competition’s third snapshot of such agreements since the Supreme Court’s decision in FTC v Actavis, which held that a brand drug manufacturer’s reverse payment to a generic competitor to settle patent litigation can violate the antitrust laws.

The report summarizes data on the 232 final patent settlements filed with the FTC and the Department of Justice during FY 2016 pursuant to requirements imposed by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. According to the report: