Two influential news sites for law and intellectual property quoted McGuireWoods partner Paul Schoenhard in articles examining the extent of a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The justices on June 4, 2026, unanimously ruled that a district judge correctly tossed an infringement suit by Amarin Pharma claiming that Hikma Pharmaceuticals encouraged physicians to prescribe Hikma’s generic version of Amarin’s heart drug for a still-patented treatment method.
The ruling is important to drugmakers and, possibly, other industries in which companies accuse competitors of inducing third parties to infringe patents.
Schoenhard, a partner in Washington, D.C., told Bloomberg Law that the Supreme Court left unanswered questions in the decision’s wake, such as how to determine liability based on “implicit encouragement,” which Schoenhard said will be “fertile ground for further development.”
Schoenhard also addressed wider commercial consequences of the ruling in comments to World IP Review. He said the decision may affect how follow-on method-of-treatment patents are valued, but noted that “the markets had to a great extent already priced in this valuation adjustment.”
In-house teams and litigators alike, Schoenhard added in the article, “will be placing greater scrutiny on marketing and promotional materials, as well as investor communications, with increased sensitivity toward statements that could ‘implicitly encourage’ off-label, patented uses.”