November 2011

Spotlight Info

In Sanofi-Aventis v. Apotex Inc., No. 11-1048 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 18, 2011), a divided panel of the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s decision awarding Sanofi-Aventis (“Sanofi”) prejudgment interest in addition to “actual damages” specified by its settlement agreement with Apotex Inc. and Apotex Corp. (collectively “Apotex”).  The Court found that use of the phrase “actual damages” included “all damages necessary to compensate Sanofi for Apotex’s infringement.”  Slip op. at 11.  Further, because prejudgment interest is a form of compensatory damages, an additional award of prejudgment interest was not warranted.  Thus, the Court held that “[b]y agreeing to a formula to calculate Sanofi’s ‘actual damages’ in the May 2006 agreement, Sanofi gave up any right to supplement its recovery with additional prejudgment interest.”  Id. at 15.  See this month’s edition of Last Month at the Federal Circuit for a full summary of this decision.