For the past few months, Watson Pharmaceuticals gave Barr ceo Bruce Downey a dose of his own medicine. Three times, Barr’s application for the Seasonale oral contraceptive was rejected by the US Patent and Trademark Office. So last fall, Watson began selling a generic. Downey, who makes a living challenging brand-name companies, had to settle for selling a copycat.

Now, though, patent officials say they will announce plans shortly to reissue the Seasonale patent to Barr. ‘‘The reissued patent confirms our position that we have the exclusive right to market Seasonale,” Downey boasts. And he may go to court to prevent Watson from continuing sales. One wag says such squabbles between generics are rare.

‘‘If the patent has been reissued in favor of Barr and the patent is valid, Barr ought to be ready to launch a patent suit to enjoin Watson from manufacturing and distributing this oral contraceptive in the future,” says Marc Friedman, who heads the intellectual property practice at Sills Cummins, a New Jersey law frim that reps drugmakers. ‘‘Situations like this between
two generics are probably very uncommon. The whole scenario is out of the ordinary.”

Barr Labs statement.

Hat tip to The Star-Ledger of New Jersey’s George Jordan for the quote. [tags]Barr Laboratories, Generics, Patents, Watson Pharmaceuticals[/tags]