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And just like that, it’s over.  Boehringer Ingelheim has thrown in the towel in its patent fight with AbbVie over Boehringer’s proposed biosimliar for Humira®.  Boehringer was a lone hold-out among a long line of proposed biosimilars for AbbVie’s blockbuster.  Boehringer’s distinction was that it had raised a unique defense, namely, arguing that AbbVie had built an unfair “patent thicket” around Humira® that was unenforceable.  We previously blogged about Boehringer’s “unclean hands” defense here and here and here.  Now that Boehringer has settled, what are the larger lessons for future biosimilar patent fights?