Medicines Company sues lawyers for busting Angiomax patent filing deadline

The Angiomax patent saga has a new chapter. Medicines Co. has now sued its law firms, Ropes & Gray and Fish & Neave, saying lawyers busted deadline for a key patent filing, risking premature generic competition for its best-selling anticoagulant.

That missed deadline saw a brief notoriety a few years ago, when Medicines Co. mounted a legal battle to salvage a patent extension filing. Arguing that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office miscalculated the deadline date, putting the Angiomax filing 24 hours too late, the company eventually won a court ruling in its favor.

Now, as Law360 reports, the company wants to exact punishment on the lawyers it's blaming for the patent extension trouble by arguing that it actually did miss the filing deadline. According to Medicines Co.'s latest suit, filed in New Jersey court, Fish & Neave failed to file the application in time.

Meanwhile, Medicines Co. has been fighting the usual patent battles with potential generics makers. Last May, the company sued Apotex over its plans to sell its version of the drug. Previously, it had sued Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Mylan ($MYL) and APP Pharmaceuticals ($APPX). Thanks to a 2012 settlement deal with APP--and a manufacturing and licensing agreement that's part of it--APP's versions are set to be delayed till 2019 at the latest.

- see the Law360 brief (reg. req.)