The District Court described an ‘active moiety’ as ‘the underlying molecule, or parent acid, of a large salt and ester family. Slip Op. at 3, n.3.
2.
The Supreme Court's ruling in Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 US 837 (1984), set forth the legal test for determining whether to grant deference to a government agency's interpretation of its own statutory mandate. In a subsequent decision, the Supreme Court summarized Chevron deference by stating ‘[w]hen a statute speaks clearly to the issue at hand we “must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress”, but when the statute “is silent or ambiguous” we must defer to a reasonable construction by the agency charged with its implementation’. Barnhart v. Thomas, 540 US 20, 26 (2003).
3.
That is, if the patent term extension were sought for a patent to an acid that was just approved and the ester formed from that acid had previously been approved, then the patent term extension would be denied, but if the extension were sought for a patent to an ester that was just approved and the acid had previously been approved, then the extension would be granted.
