Twelve Chinese pharmaceutical firms are calling for a reversal of the June 2 court ruling upholding Pfizer's patent for its anti-impotence drug Viagra. But the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), which was ordered on June 2 to withdraw its two-year old decision to invalidate the patent right of sildenafil citrate, Viagra's active ingredient, did not appeal with the 12 companies. The domestic drugmakers claim to have invested over US$12 million in generic copies of the blue pill, which are intended to sell in China at less than half the cost of Viagra, but they have been barred from selling their imitations as the case has slowly made its way through the patent review process and the courts since Pfizer filed its patent application in May 1994.
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