The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) has granted pharmaceutical company Celgene Corp. permission to file a motion for sanctions for abuse of process against an organization created by hedge fund manager Kyle Bass, a move that, if successful, could halt similar patent challenges that pharma companies allege were made so Bass could short-sell the stock.

“This motion represents a possible new avenue to challenge Bass's effort to use the IPR procedure to lower the stock prices of targeted pharmaceutical companies,” Cary Miller and Matthew I. Kreeger, two Morrison & Foerster attorneys, wrote in a client alert posted on the firm's website.

Celgene is the target of four inter partes review petitions seeking to invalidate its patents. They were filed by the Coalition for Affordable Drugs, an organization affiliated with Bass and Erich Spangenberg, founder of the patent assertion entity IPNav.