In a complicated case involving biotech patents for a high cholesterol treatment – and being closely watched by the patent world – the Supreme Court on Thursday affirmed the Federal Circuit and handed a major victory to Sanofi in its intellectual property battle with Amgen over Repatha, a treatment for high cholesterol.

Amgen sought to collect millions of dollars in damages from Sanofi and its partner, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals because Sanofi makes a rival drug called Praluent, which works by a similar mechanism as Repatha. Amgen initially sought a court injunction to force Praluent off the market, which was denied by an appeals court.

In the Supreme Court case, Justice Neil Gorsuch's opinion, which dated back to 2014, shirked recent precedents in the biotech space and instead focused on some of the Supreme Court's early patent precedents, involving inventors who have become household names taught in grade school.