The case of Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., has raised a host of questions about the appointment of judges to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), and witnesses at a congressional hearing said a Supreme Court review might be two years in coming. Any such resolution might not clear out the thicket of underlying legal questions, however, and thus the witnesses urged Congress to take action quickly even as the Federal Circuit considers an en banc hearing of the matter.

With little more than a month to go before a trial begins in a multidistrict litigation (MDL) against several opioid manufacturers, privately owned Purdue Pharma LP is continuing its efforts to settle with all the plaintiffs involved.

In the largest U.S. opioid-related settlement yet, Reckitt Benckiser Group plc agreed to pay a total of $1.4 billion to end federal civil and criminal investigations into its role in delaying generic competition to Suboxone, an opioid-addiction treatment drug.