Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceutical Ltd., the leading Chinese oncology company that has been sued by Sanofi Aventis (SA) over infringements of its Chinese Taxotere patents in the past five years, announced on May 7 that the Patent Review Board of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) recently invalidated all Chinese patents of SA’s Taxotere (Docetaxel).

Liu Guiming, director of the SIPO's Patent Office declined to explain on what grounds the patent was withdrawn, "Because the case has not been finalized yet".

"Sanofi-Aventis will probably appeal to the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Court to get the patent reinstated, after which, the two companies will continue the infringement suit in the high court," Wang Bin, an intellectual property law consultant with the Shanghai Municipal Food and Drug Administration's Scientific and Technical Information Institute, told Russian News Agency Interfax.

Yi Hui, a Sanofi-Aventis public relations official said today that the company is "now collecting the relevant documents [to appeal]."

If SA does not litigate against this new SIPO ruling with Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court within three months, the company’s previous litigations against Jiangsu Hengrui Pharma over infringements of its Taxotere patents will be closed, according to Dai Hongbing, company secretary of Hengrui Pharma. SA has declined to comment on the ruling so far and it is unclear if it will litigate against the ruling.

In 2003, Sanofi Aventis filed its first lawsuit against Jiangsu Hengrui with Shanghai No.2 Intermediate Court for the alleged patent infringement on its patented production process, and following four years of legal battle between the two companies, Shanghai No.2 Intermediate Court ruled in late October 2006 against Hengrui, and ordered the company to apologize for its unfair competitive practices, stop such practices and pay damages to Sanofi Aventis in the amount of CNY 400,000 (US$51,000) and legal expenses in the amount of CNY 100,000 (US$12,700). But the decision was overturned by Shanghai Superior People's Court in June 2007, although the court found Jiangsu Hengrui engaged in "unfair competition".

Subsequently, Sanofi-Aventis filed a lawsuit with the Beijing High Court in September 2007 with new claims on alleged infringements on the formulation patent held by Sanofi Aventis for docetaxel injection which was approved in China on December 27, 2006.  Sanofi-Aventis sought CNY 45 million (US$6 million) in patent fees, CNY 55 million (US$7 million) in compensation for economic loss, and CNY 200,000 (US$26,600) in sampling and notarization fees.

Litigating Jiangsu Hengrui on a formulation patent represents a new strategy of Sanofi Aventis for this dispute, according to local legal experts. To counter SA’s litigations, Jiangsu Hengrui applied to the Patent Review Board of SIPO to invalidate the Chinese patents of Taxotere held by Sanofi Aventis.

Jiangsu Hengrui's Aisu (docetaxel) sales in 2007 was over CNY 300 million (US$43 million), while the sales of Taxotere (docetaxel) by SA was only CNY 160 million (US$23 million) in the same year. The price of Aisu is only about 25% of Taxotere.