Dispute Overview

3TC was the subject of duplicate patent claims. Both BioChem Pharmaceuticals and Emory University developed a very similar drug, lamivudine, now known as 3TC. BioChem had won the international patent race for 3TC, based on being first to file, which is the determinant for international intellectual property ownership. In the U.S. however, based on first to invent rules, Emory was the rightful owner of domestic patent rights to 3TC. BioChem had licensed their international patents for 3TC to British drug maker, Glaxo, who then attempted to invalidate Emory's U.S. patent rights.

Around the same time, the FTC innovation had initially been licensed to Burroughs Wellcome and Triangle Pharmaceuticals, a company founded by one of the Emory inventors, and both companies commenced clinical trials of the drug. Shire Pharmaceuticals also later licensed FTC from Emory after it lost a patent dispute with the University. Burroughs Wellcome was still in the clinical trial phase of FTC when Glaxo acquired the company. As part of the acquisition, Glaxo returned the license of FTC to Emory in favor of their pursuit of 3TC as an HIV treatment.

During the trial period, prior to the Glaxo/Wellcome merger, Burroughs Wellcome filed patents to treat the Hepatitis B virus with FTC. Emory had previously filed in the U.S. for the Hepatitis B treatment with the drug and filed suit against Glaxo, on the basis that Burroughs Wellcome had misappropriated Emory's inventors' property and that the intellectual property that Burroughs Wellcome had used for their patent was not their own. Glaxo also was refusing to return to Emory the clinical trial data for studies conducted under the now cancelled Wellcome FTC license.