MADISON, WIS. — On January 5, 2010, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the 2006 decision of United States District Court Judge Barbara B. Crabb’s award to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (“WARF”) for licensing fees from Xenon Pharmaceuticals, a Canadian biotechnology company. The court denied Xenon's appeal and held that it had breached its exclusive license agreement with WARF by failing to pay its share of fees collected by licensing technology developed at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

As the private, nonprofit patenting and licensing organization for UW – Madison, WARF protects the interests of its inventors and the university, and benefits the public by moving important discoveries from the university laboratory to the marketplace. In this case, UW researchers Alan Attie, Mark Keller, Makato Miyazaki and James Ntambi discovered an assay and promising compounds related to the control of cholesterol, obesity and diabetes.

The court further granted WARF’s appeal for a declaration of its ownership interest in additional therapeutic compounds Xenon claims it was assigned by one of the inventors. In a clean sweep of the appellate issues, the court also reversed the U.S. District Court’s decision that WARF could not terminate its license agreement, which was executed in 2001, with Xenon.

WARF was established in 1925 as one the world’s first university-based technology transfer office. It is a private, nonprofit supporting organization to the UW – Madison, protects the interests of its inventors and the university, and benefits the public by moving important discoveries from the university laboratory to the marketplace.

WARF is represented in this case by Madison-based attorneys Anthony Tomaselli, Kristin Graham Noel, Josephine Benkers and Andrew Norman, among others, of Quarles & Brady LLP.

Quarles & Brady LLP is a full-service law firm with more than 425 attorneys practicing from offices in Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz.; Chicago, Ill.; Naples, Fla.; and Milwaukee and Madison, Wis. The Firm offers an array of legal services to corporate and individual clients that range from small entrepreneurial businesses to Fortune 100 companies. Additional information about the Firm may be found at www.quarles.com.