An infamous intellectual property battle ended in late May when Genentech and MedImmune settled a lawsuit regarding the validity of Genentech's Cabilly 2 patent, a method for producing therapeutic antibodies. The patent remains valid, allowing the S. San Francisco–based company to continue reaping royalties—which in 2007 exceeded $133 million—from successful drugs such as MedImmune's Synagis (palivizumab). The settlement in part reduces Gaithersburg, Maryland–based MedImmune's risk of jeopardizing its relationship with Genentech. “There are only a small number of big biotech companies and you may need to license things from them in the future,” says Stephen Albainy-Jenei, an attorney with Frost Brown Todd in Cincinnati. Under the terms of the agreement, MedImmune, now owned by London-based AstraZeneca, can in the future obtain licenses under the Cabilly patent family for certain products in its pipeline. The lawsuit may be over, but its repercussions are not. Before the settlement, the case had reached the Supreme Court, where a fundamental precedent in intellectual property law was revised. The Court ruled that a licensee can at the same time pay royalties on a patent and sue to invalidate it. That ruling stands, and experts say other licensees may still use it as leverage to renegotiate their contracts (Nat. Biotechnol. 25, 264–265, 2007). Separately, Genentech also faces a reexam of Cabilly 2's validity by the US Patent and Trademark Office (Nat. Biotechnol. 26, 362, 2008).