PHILADELPHIA – A pharmaceutical company has sued a competitor, claiming an abuse of process was committed in asking the government to check out the validity of a patent professing to be anti-venom medication.
BTG International Inc. filed a lawsuit Aug. 28, 2015 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Bioactive Laboratories and Kenneth E. Darnell asserting a claim for abuse of process.
For more than a year, Bioactive Laboratories and Darnell have repeatedly threatened to sue BTG for defamation, slander, libel and other unidentified business, according to the lawsuit, claiming those actions stemmed from allegedly inaccurate statements made by BTG employees about whether rattlesnake venom being used, in part, to manufacture a BTG anti-venom medication.
Bioactive, owned by Darnell, filed a petition on May 29, 2015 with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board requesting that they board institute a review against BTG’s patent for its anti-venom medication even though, according to the claim, Darnell has admitted in writing that he has no information concerning the validity of the BTG patent in question.
The filing, according to the lawsuit, is a classic example of an abuse of process claim under Pennsylvania law.
BTG International is seeking compensatory damages, as well as pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, costs and attorneys’ fees.
BTG International is being represented attorneys Steven Maniloff and Steven E. Pachman of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, L.L.P. of Philadelphia.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Court Case number 2:15-cv-04885-GJP