Tomorrow morning, the Supreme Court will file its opinion in In re Cipro Cases I & II, which asks: May a suit under the Cartwright Antitrust Act (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 16720 et seq.) be brought to challenge “reverse exclusionary payments” made by pharmaceutical manufacturers to settle patent litigation with generic drug producers and prolong the life of the patents in question? The court also asked for supplemental briefing about the relevance of FTC v. Actavis, Inc. (2013) 570 U.S. __ [133 S.Ct. 2223, 186 L.Ed.2d 343] to the issues in the case.
Cipro is the first of the March calendar cases to be decided, but review was granted almost three and a half years ago (briefing was stayed, however, for separate periods of nine months and then five months). Also, the case atypically garnered only four votes for review.
The opinion can be viewed Monday starting at 10:00 a.m.
