Commitments and Contingencies

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2012

Commitments and Contingencies [Abstract]

Commitments and Contingencies

NOTE 5 — Commitmentsand Contingencies

Therapeutic uses of our Androxal^® product candidate are covered in the United States by five issued U.S. patents and seven pending patent applications. Foreign coverage of therapeutic uses of our Androxal^® product candidate includes 55 issued foreign patents and 53 foreign pending patent applications. The issued patents and pending applications relate to methods for treating certain conditions including the treatment of testosterone deficiency in men, the treatment of diabetes mellitus Type 2, the treatment of metabolic syndrome and conditions associated therewith, and the treatment of infertility in hypogonadal men. Androxal^® (the trans-isomer of clomiphene) is purified from clomiphene citrate. A third party individual holds two issued patents related to the use of an anti-estrogen such as clomiphene citrate and others for use in the treatment of androgen deficiency and disorders related thereto. We requested re-examination of one of these patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) based on prior art. The patent holder amended the claims in the re-examination proceedings, which led the PTO to determine that the amended claims were patentable in view of those publications under consideration and a re-examination certificate was issued. We subsequently filed a second request for re-examination by the PTO in light of a number of additional publications. The request was granted and all of the claims were finally rejected by the PTO in the re-examination. The patent holder appealed the rejections to the PTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (the “PTO Board”) which ultimately reversed the rejections of several dependent claims in view of those publications under consideration. The patent holder filed a Notice of Appeal to the Federal Circuit on September 28, 2010 contesting the rejections maintained by the PTO Board. A decision was rendered by the Federal Circuit on December 12, 2011, affirming the rejection of the appealed claims. We expect that a re-examination certificate will be issued confirming the patentability of the remaining claims; however, if such a re-examination certificate were to issue, we believe that our development of Androxal® would not infringe any of the remaining claims and that all of the remaining claims are invalid on various grounds including additional prior art publications. We also believe that the second of these two patents is invalid in view of published prior art not considered by the PTO. If necessary, we intend to vigorously defend any and all claims against the holder of such patents in a court of competent jurisdiction in order to develop Androxal^® further. Adverse determinations in litigation proceedings could require us to seek licenses which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, or subject us to significant liabilities, in which case we may not be able to successfully commercialize or out-license Androxal® until such patents expire or are otherwise no longer in force.

On March 1, 2010, we were served with a lawsuit where we were named as a co-defendant along with one of our clinical regulatory service providers (“CRO”) relating to the Proellex^® clinical trial study.  The lawsuit was filed in the State of Tennessee, 30th Judicial District Chancery Court at Memphis by an investigator and claims that the CRO did not pay it amounts owing to it relating to the Proellex® study.  We did not engage the investigator and under our agreement with the CRO, we believe the CRO is responsible for any such costs or damages regarding such lawsuit.  Pursuant to a Settlement Agreement and Mutual Release entered into in October 2009, such CRO, on behalf of itself and its agents, released us from all claims which could be asserted by them against us.  We believe such release covers the claims set forth in this lawsuit. The CRO failed to respond to the lawsuit, and a default judgment was entered against it in the amount of $172,901.29. We intend to vigorously defend any and all claims asserted by the investigator. An estimate of the possible costs or expenses to defend ourselves in this matter or risk of exposure under the litigation cannot be made at this time.