Moderna Incorporated has failed to persuade a Delaware federal judge on Wednesday to shift liability from the company to the U.S. government for alleged patent infringement by company’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Chief Judge Colm Connolly’s ruling for Alny-lam Pharmaceuticals Incorporated comes just over a month after a different judge in Delaware rejected Moderna’s similar motion in another vaccine patent lawsuit.
The cases are part of a wave of patent lawsuits that have been filed over technology used in the COVID-19 shots, including one filed by Moderna against Pfizer last year.
A Moderna spokesperson said in a statement that the company “respectfully disagrees” with the decision and is confident that discovery will support its position. Representatives for Alnylam did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Alnylam sued both Moderna and Pfizer Inc in Delaware last year, seeking royalties for the lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology their vaccines use to deliver genetic material known as mRNA.
The cases are part of a wave of patent lawsuits that have been filed over technology used in the COVID-19 shots, including one filed by Moderna against Pfizer last year.
Moderna said in the Alnylam case that the court should dismiss claims that were based on vaccines it sold to the U.S. government and that Alnylam should instead seek damages from the government itself. It cited a law that was previously used to keep patent disputes from interfering with the supply of war materials during World War One.
