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# WLF Asks End to California Patent Settlement Law
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/wlf-asks-end-to-california-patent-settlement-law/
- Published: 2020-02-11T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T16:02:32.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5146061

The Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) is asking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to enjoin a California law that would presume that every drug company patent settlement is unlawful if it gives a generic manufacturer “anything of value,” including an “exclusive license,” and postpones generic market entry for even a day. The WLF *amicus* [brief](https://www.wlf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/WLF-NAM-U.S.-Chamber-Amicus-Brief-AAM-v-Becerra-No.-20-15014.pdf?ref=fdaweb.com) says the state law “imposes staggering liability on drug makers for merely carrying out federal policy.” WLF was joined by the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

According to the brief, for more than 35 years patent litigation settlement has been the chief market-entry vehicle for low-cost generic and biosimilar drugs. It notes that in its 2013 decision in *FTC v. Actavis*, the Supreme Court refused to condemn as presumptively anticompetitive patent settlements that include a so-called reverse payment.

The brief argues that by elevating state law over federal law, the California bill “erects several major obstacles to the accomplishment of federal law, frustrates the policy aims of Congress, and is thus preempted under the Supremacy Clause. In particular, the law poses discrete roadblocks to Congress’ aims under the federal food and drug law, federal patent law, and federal antitrust law.