Merck Sharp & Dohme has claimed ownership of a Pfizer patent related to the blockbuster Prevnar 13 vaccine, after a doctor who moved between the pharmaceutical companies and is listed as an author on the patent allegedly accessed confidential Merck documents before jumping ship to Pfizer.
A judge overseeing the pelvic mesh class action against Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon has questioned why three doctor’s professional bodies tried to negotiate court orders requiring them to hand over their member lists, agreeing the supboena was “not a garden party invitation”.
Lawyers for IOOF chief financial officer David Coulter have dismissed APRA’s allegations that he breached his superannuation duties as commercially “naïve”, “absolutely desperate” and a “most egregious example” of impulsive regulatory enforcement action.
The publishers of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times have lost an appeal of a $300,000 defamation award to cricketer Chris Gayle, despite the appeals court finding Gayle’s barrister had gone “too far” in his submissions to the jury.
The phrase true A2 is not inherently adapted to distinguish the A2 Milk Company’s products because A2 milk is commonly understood to signify less allergenic dairy products that do not contain the A1 protein, according to a now-published ruling that’s already been appealed by the dairy company.
Telecommunications company Vodafone will refund thousands of customers misled by its direct carrier billing charges after an investigation by the consumer watchdog that saw Telstra and Optus fined $10 million for similar conduct.
Two former executives of Hastie Services have been cleared of criminal charges that they engaged in a conspiracy to falsify the company’s accounts, with a judge ordering the jury to enter verdicts of not guilty on all charges.
A judge overseeing a class action against engineering company UGL has agreed to extend a class closure order to give the parties a second chance to resolve the case in mediation, but not without expressing concerns that the order did not have the intended effect of encouraging settlement at the first sit-down.
A court has barred US drug company Merck Sharp & Dohme from denying that an agreement made with German pharmaceutical company Merck KGaA was governed by German law, settling a key question before a trade mark case between the two drug giants goes to trial.
Sportsbet’s application to register ‘Same Game Multi’ as a trade mark has been rejected, with the Registrar of Trade Marks relying on statements in the company’s own market research that its betting product should “do exactly what it says on the tin” to find the mark insufficiently distinctive.
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