On March 15, 2017, Brazil's Sao Paulo State Court of Appeals confirmed a preliminary injunction barring Uniao Quimica, a Brazilian generic company, from launching a generic version of Allergan’s Combigan® (brimonidine tartrate and timolol maleate).  Combigan® is prescribed for the reduction of elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) in patients with glaucoma or ocular hypertension who require adjunctive or replacement therapy due to inadequately controlled IOP.   

The preliminary injunction was granted in view of three patent applications filed by Allergan and pending before the Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial (INPI) since 2003 (namely, patent application no. PI0302584-5 filed in 2003 as well as divisional application nos. BR1220140116901-9 and BR122014016915-9 filed in 2012).  Application no. PI0302584-5 was rejected by INPI; however, an administrative appeal is pending. 

Allergan argued that the backlog and inefficiency of INPI had been punishing to the pharmaceutical company.  Specifically, Allergan argued that not granting the preliminary injunction based on the pending application would be “allowing third parties to freely infringe the application during its pendency”, and that the “patent owner would be absolutely deprived of effective means to protect its invention during the prosecution of the application, a proceeding the patent owner has no control over”. 

After the Trial Court issued an injunction on September 28, 2016, Uniao Quimica filed an interlocutory appeal challenging the grounds of the decision.  The reporting Appellate Judge, Hon. Francisco Loureiro, stayed the injunction concluding that the patent owner was only allowed to exclude others based on its patent rights after issuance of the patent by INPI. 

However, in a split decision (2-1), other members of the panel dissented from Hon. Loureiro, thus rejecting the interlocutory appeal and confirming the preliminary injunction.  The Hon. Cesar Ciampolini issued the deciding vote, stating that the preliminary injunction should be granted for the following reasons: (i) INPI’s inexcusable delay in examining patent applications; (ii) the rapid pace at which technology becomes obsolete; (iii) counterpart patents has been granted in several countries; (iv)  Uniao Quimica did not deny that its products were copies of Combigan®; and (v) Uniao Quimica’s behavior in launching generic copies was a matter of unfair competition and should not be allowed by the courts.

Although Uniao Quimica may still appeal to higher courts, the decision is an interesting outcome in view of INPI’s backlog in examining patent application.

Felipe Mesquita and Roberto Rodrigues Pinho of Licks Attorneys are co-authors of this article.