FTC’s accusation against Daewoong Pharm for’Gapjil of the replica drug’ and a penalty of KRW 2.3 billion… First sanction for abuse of patent rights

Input 2021.03.03 12:00

By filing false data to obtain a patent for gastrointestinal drugs, and to unfairly file a patent infringement lawsuit to prevent competitors from entering the market Daewoong Pharmaceutical (069620)A total of 2.3 billion won was withdrawn from the Fair Trade Commission. The Fair Trade Commission also decided to take a prosecution against the corporation.

This measure is the first case in which the FTC sanctioned the act of interfering with competitors’ transactions by filing an unfair patent lawsuit. Daewoong Pharmaceutical became the first company to be punished for misusing patent rights.

The Fair Trade Commission announced on the 3rd that Daewoong Pharmaceutical has decided to impose a correction order and a total of 2.297 billion won in penalties for acts that interfered with the sale of generic drugs by filing a patent infringement lawsuit, and to prosecute the corporation to the prosecution.

According to the FTC, Daewoong Pharmaceutical, the patent holder of the gastrointestinal drug’Albis’, formulated and executed a plan to file a patent infringement lawsuit against competitors using the successor patents of Albis and Albis D in order to defend their market entry after the original patent expires.

Even though they recognized that the competing generic company Pavis Pharmaceuticals did not infringe their patents, they filed a patent infringement lawsuit. Later, he filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Ahn Kook Pharm, a generic sign, and interfered with the sale of generic drugs.

Regardless of the actual patent infringement, once a patent infringement lawsuit is filed, it is difficult for customers such as hospitals and wholesalers to convert transactions to generics that are likely to discontinue sales in the future. In particular, in a bid for a university hospital that proceeds at the beginning of the year and the results are likely to be maintained throughout the year, a temporary injunction lawsuit was enforced in order to damage the image of competitors’ products. When a loss was expected because the patent infringement could not be proven, a delay strategy was used, such as submitting an irrelevant test report.

An official from the FTC said, “The act of filing a disguised lawsuit solely for the purpose of obstructing the business of competitors even though there is no possibility of winning is a typical patent abuse that is actively regulated by foreign competition authorities such as the United States.” “The act of filing a patent lawsuit is an unfair act that undermines the basis of the competitive order.”