Patent case: In re Couvaras, USA

The combination of two well-known high blood pressure medicines did not result in unexpected patient benefits.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board denying as obvious over prior art an application to patent a method of co-administering two well-known antihypertensive agents to treat high blood pressure. While the manner in which the combined drugs achieved the reduction in blood pressure was unforeseen, the Board correctly determined that because the combined drugs yielded the same ultimate outcome as the individual compounds—lowering blood pressure in patients—the novel treatment was not patentable (In re Couvaras, June 14, 2023, Lourie, A.).

Case date: 14 June 2023

Case number: No. 22-1489

Court: United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.