Plexxikon Inc. v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 PLEXXIKON INC., Case No. 17-cv-04405-HSG Plaintiff, ORDER REGARDING PLAINTIFF’S

MOTION IN LIMINE NO. 1 AND

v. DEFENDANT’S MOTIONS IN LIMINE

NOS. 2, 3, AND

NOVARTIS PHARMACEUTICALS CORPORATION, Re: Dkt. Nos. 259, 269, 270, 271 11 Defendant. 12 The Court rules on the pending motions in limine (“MIL”) described below as follows, and will continue to issue rulings on the remaining MILs on a rolling basis. I. BACKGROUND These MILs relate to the same issue: unasserted related inventions. As relevant, the asserted patents arose from Plaintiff Plexxikon’s work on selective B-Raf inhibitors. B-Raf is a type of protein whose mutations frequently cause cancer. Although inhibiting kinase is desirable, doing so nonselectively is toxic. Plexxikon succeeded in developing inhibitors that selectively target mutated B-Raf in 2004, in work that eventually led to the drug Zelboraf. As characterized by…