In what may prove to be a landmark intellectual-property case, a Beijing court backed Pfizer Inc.'s patent on sildenafil citrate, the main ingredient in the company's Viagra drug. The finding overturned a July 2004 ruling by the patent review board in favor of a group of generic-drug makers, the Wall Street Journal reported. Drug companies had feared that a decision against Pfizer would open up a flood of similar challenges. Pfizer, the largest drug company in the world, took on the expensive legal effort to protect the drug with world-wide sales of US$1.6 billion in 2005. The ruling may come at a politically convenient time for China, when it is trying to prove to the world that it is serious about stopping piracy of everything from running shoes to high-tech microchips.
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