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October 23, 2007

Sovereign Immunity

Biomedical Patent Management wants to sue the Department of Health Services (DHS) of the State of California for infringing 4,874,693, claiming screening for birth defects in pregnant women. DHS has intervened in a previous action against Kaiser, but this time sought a pass using the sovereign immunity defense, under the Eleventh Amendment. That's all it takes for the state to skip out; that the state involved itself previously in a related action makes no difference; it's not "the case at hand," i.e., the same case.  (CAFC 06-1515)

Same result as last year: case 1, case 2.

Posted by Patent Hawk at October 23, 2007 1:07 PM | Case Law