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Pfizer Begins Court Proceedings to Protect Viagra Patent
- Publisher：
- Publication：2011/6/16
Pfizer will begin court proceedings in Virginia, US, today to fight to keep the exclusive rights to sell Viagra (sildenafil citrate) through to 2019.
The company, based in New York, sued generic maker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries earlier this month to block a copycat version of the drug, which treats erectile dysfunction.
The shared feeling in Wall Street is that Pfizer will face competition from generic-pharmaceutical firms once its basic patent expires in 2012.
But the firm hopes US District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith will enforce the second of two patents it holds on sildenafil. The first patent is not in dispute.
Pfizer sells about $1bn of the little blue pills a year in the US, amounting to about 2.5% of the company's sales.
The company said in a statement, "We believe our patent is valid and infringed, and are enforcing our rights under the patent.
"Furthermore, many of Teva's arguments had been previously considered and rejected by the US Patent and Trademark Office, both during a six-year examination by the USPTO of Pfizer's patent and again during a seven-year re-examination by the USPTO."