Earlier this month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an opinion in the case of Novartis AG et al., v. Ezra Ventures LLC, case number 2017-2284, again finding that the judicially created, non-statutory, obviousness-type double patenting doctrine may not be used to invalidate or cut-short additional patent term conferred under the patent term extension (PTE) provisions of 35 U.S.C. § 156. The court previously addressed a similar question in the case of Merck & Co. v. Hi-Tech Pharmacal Co., 482 F.3d 1317 (Fed. Cir. 2007), in which it held that obviousness-type double patenting does not… Read more