IMO (I am not an attorney as everyone knows) this particular pharmacology case appears quite diff from litigation re semiconductor technology wrt interjecting the KSR/O ruling.  Tho it does certainly show that the KSR/O ruling may in fact be considered and implemented in a Federal Court case.

Forgive me for pointing this out, but herein lies the problem: The salient points were overlooked -

There were three grounds of invalidity asserted by Ivax and Cipla before the District Court.  First, the Defendants alleged that the compound claims of the patent-in-suit were invalid as being anticipated by a prior art reference (the Smith reference) that discussed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (including citalopram).  However, "substantially pure" (+)-enantiomer of citalopram was not explicitly disclosed in the reference, and the District Court found that the reference did not enable the skilled worker to produce it.  Specifically, the technique taught in the reference for separating enantiomers was new and unpredictable, and there was evidence that Smith himself, as well as others including the inventor of the '712 patent, failed in attempting to produce escitalopram using the method.  The District Court found that the Smith reference was not enabled for producing escitalopram, and thus that the claims of the '712 patent were not anticipated.

On the question of obviousness, the District Court found that the Smith reference would not provide the skilled worker with a reasonable expectation of success at separating the citalopram enantiomers, and that success was sufficiently uncertain that the worker would be motivated to discover new compounds rather than try to separate the enantiomers.  Regarding the method claim (claim 11), the District Court found that the art did not describe the reactions recited in the claim.

Finally, the District Court found that claim 11 was not invalid for being impermissibly broadened more than two years after the patent issued.  In reissue, claim 11 was amended to recite that a (-)diol intermediate was converted to (+)citalopram; the claim as issued recited that (+)citalopram was produced from a (+)diol intermediate.  The District Court found that the error was merely a typographical error, and would have been appreciated by a worker of ordinary skill.

but I also believe the Js are citing KSR/O in these settlement negotiations as one of the few cards they happen to hold, regardless of what weight in may actually carry.

I humbly suggest that were there any weight, the Defendants would have filed a MSJ long before now, and I would go even further to say that that card was never in their deck in the first place, and they knew it.

Be well