Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd took legal action against Pfizer to argue that the patent, which protects Viagra - Pfizers' famous Viagra impotence medicine - from generic copies until 2019, is invalid.

However, the court found that Teva had not shown clear and convincing evidence to support this argument. The judgement extends the protection of Viagra from generic copies until 2019, allowing Pfizer to benefit from its intellectual property rights and in the first half of 2011 alone, Pfizer sold $965 million worth of Viagra.

Viagra receives more media attention than almost any other drug of any type. Pfizer attorney Daniel P. DiNapoli said "Part of the reason for that, no doubt, is the subject matter to which Viagra relates - sex. But there were ED treatments before Viagra, and none of them received the attention that Viagra has received. And what distances Viagra from these other ED treatments is that Viagra is an effective oral treatment for erectile dysfunction, an ED pill. Pfizer's success with Viagra was the end result of a long research and development project."