Intellectual Property Rights

Moderna Inc. sued rival Covid-19 vaccine makers Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, alleging that the companies’ shot infringes on key intellectual property owned by Moderna.Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine relies on messenger RNA technology that Moderna had developed and patented years ago, including a chemical modification that avoids prompting an undesirable immune response, Moderna said in lawsuits filed Friday. Moderna filed a lawsuit in…

Roche RHHBY -1.38% Holding AG Chief Executive Severin Schwan is to step down in March, following a 15-year tenure marked by the marriage of the Swiss healthcare giant and California’s Genentech, the blockbuster success of three cancer drugs and the challenge of replacing them when lower-cost competition arrived.Mr. Schwan also presided over setbacks in his long run at the top of the company. Genentech lost a rare challenge to U.S.…

Luxury shoemaker Manolo Blahnik said it won a long-running legal dispute over the use of its trademark in China, enabling it to start selling its stiletto heels and other luxury footwear in the country for the first time. The brand hasn’t operated in China since 1999, when a local businessman trademarked the Manolo Blahnik name, excluding the company from a boom that has turned China into a top market for luxury goods over the past two decades. The brand entered American…

A long-running legal battle over allegedly defective earplugs made by 3M Co. MMM -0.31% arose after the company initiated a separate dispute against a smaller competitor, court documents showed.3M’s effort to protect its military earplug business eventually led 3M to halt deliveries of one model of earplugs, and resulted in years of litigation, millions of dollars in costs and potentially billions in liabilities for the Minnesota-based manufacturing giant, according to…

Illinois-based AbbVie Inc. makes the bulk of its profits from arthritis drug Humira on sales in the U.S., but the company reports almost all its taxable income in foreign subsidiaries, according to a Senate Finance Committee report that criticizes the pharmaceutical company’s use of entities in Bermuda and Puerto Rico to reduce its tax burden.The Democratic staff report details how AbbVie Biotechnology Ltd., a Bermuda-based AbbVie subsidiary with no employees or significant operations in…

LONDON—The heads of the FBI and Britain’s domestic security service issued sharply worded warnings to business leaders about the threats posed by Chinese espionage, especially spying aimed at stealing Western technology companies’ intellectual property. In a rare joint appearance on Wednesday at the headquarters of MI5, Christopher Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Ken McCallum, director-general of MI5, urged executives not to…

HONG KONG—In just a few years, the Chinese apparel giant Shein has captured the market for bargain-seeking Gen-Z shoppers by offering huge varieties of cheap apparel every day. Along the way, it has picked up a long list of complaints of copyright theft from big brands and boutique designers.Valued at more than $100 billion and backed by big-name investors such as Sequoia Capital China and General Atlantic, Shein—pronounced “she-in”—has enjoyed booming growth. Its appeal includes cut-rate prices, successful tie-ups with…

The estate of Elvis Presley is banking on a new era of burning love for the King of Rock ’n’ Roll.Baz Luhrmann’s long-awaited “Elvis” movie topped the box office last weekend, generating praise for star Austin Butler’s portrayal of the charismatic rock star. Behind the scenes, the keepers of the business of the singer who died 45 years ago are trying to seize the moment. They are tightening control over Elvis’s image and expanding Elvis content into children’s books, a new Netflixseries and an entire streaming channel…

GENEVA—The member countries of the World Trade Organization agreed Friday on a narrow measure aimed at boosting the supplies of Covid-19 vaccines in developing countries, wrapping up a bitter fight over corporate patent rights governing critical medical products during a pandemic.The compromise measure on intellectual property rights will make it easier for companies in developing nations such as South Africa to manufacture and export a patented Covid-19 vaccine—under limited circumstances—without a consent from the…

Pfizer Inc. will sell nearly two dozen of its patent-protected drugs and vaccines at not-for-profit prices to some of the world’s poorest countries.Under the program, Pfizer will begin shipping the medicines first to Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal and Uganda before the end of this year, Chief Executive Albert Bourla said in an interview. The arrangement means that some of the drugs that carry list prices of tens of thousands of dollars a year in the U.S. would…