The past week was a fairly interesting week in the world of IP and we carried a number of posts reporting some of these developments. The first post of the week was a post by one of our new Fellows – Spadika where she reported on the National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (“NPTEL”), a program similar to the MIT Open Course Ware, which provides online courseware for students to bridge the oft complained about gap in qualifications of faculty members across Indian Universities.
We then carried Madhulika’s post on the setting aside of the patent office order refusing the crystalline form patent of Vorapaxar by the IPAB. She observes here that “patent office decisions leave much to be desired in terms of articulation skills and analytical rigor” and also that an applicant that makes a claim for a crystalline polymorph form should substantiate the claim with proof of therapeutic efficacy at the early stages of the application itself.
This post had generated quite the debate and one particular comment in that post is our Spicy comment of the week. Kamal (Feb 4, 7:13 a.m.) notes that,
“They should have substantiated the claims with proof of enhanced therapeutic efficacy in the specification in the initial stages itself. I am not sure if it will be wise for applicants to wait for results of therapeutic efficacy before filing the application … it may take few years through clinical trials and all to provide any concrete proof of therapeutic efficacy… and I am not convinced that Supreme Court said the proof of efficacy should be provided in the patent application itself…. nowhere in the judgement it said that later discovered proof (therapeutic efficacy of the drug discovered after filing of patent application) may not be used … let me know if I am wrong”
Madhulika, in her second post this week, reported on what is perhaps the highlight in Indian IP law this week – the grant of an injunction by the Delhi HC against Biocon and Mylan over a “biosimilar” version of Herceptin. She notes that the court found merit in the argument that the products of Biocon and Mylan were being passed off as equivalent in quality and class to Hereptin, a drug manufactured by Roche. She observes in her post that the Delhi High Court had also found that Biocon and Mylan were required to disclose the nature of approvals of their biosimilar products in court on the next date of hearing.
In the next post we carried, I examined the copyright aspects in auto tuned videos in the backdrop of the recent takedown by a video mocking Rahul Gandhi’s speech for copyright infringement. I argued that the work being transformative, was entitled to fair use protection.
Moving on, Anubha wrote a piece titled “NationSpeak at the WIPO Standing Committee on Patents” wherein she used comprehensive news reports to piece together the positions of various nations on the crucial issues of improvisation in the quality of patents, patents and health, and the like.
Aparajita’s post on the Indian perspective of the investigation by the USITC into India’s trade, investment and industrial policies follows up on her post on the GIPC IP index and ties up this week’s posts quite nicely. It notes that the USITC is to hold a public hearing on the 13th of this month as a part of its investigation. A defence of India’s patent regime comes in the form of a statement by Prof Srividhya Raghavan, et.al. and can be accessed here.
We also carried a couple of Tidbits this week, reporting the settlement in the Mad Men Litigation over the use of the face of model Gita Hall May in their theme song and Shruti Hassan contemplating legal action over the dubbing of one of her films into Tamil without consent. Aparajita reminded us about the publication of NUJS Law Review Special Issue on the Copyright Amendment Act, which contains articles by some of our bloggers and is definitely a must read, (can be accessed here) and Gopika about Managing IP’s “India IP and Innovation Forum 2014″. The conference is to be held on the 26th of February and is free for academics, in-house counsel and R&D professionals. Rajiv also posted a word of caution about scams in which payments were solicited from clients for the registration of their “international patent” at the European Patent Offices.
SpicyIP Jobs
Regarding job openings, there have been two recent postings, one for the position of Junior Associate at the Noida office of IP Gurus and the other for the position of Senior Associate/Partner at the Pune office of Abhay Nevagi and Associates. See all the jobs currently available here.
International Developments
There were a number of International IP developments that caught our attention. These include this post on IP Watch which reports on the demand by the Indigenous Panel at the WIPO for an instrument compliant with their recognised rights. The panel also asserted the rights of indigenous people over traditional knowledge and genetic resources. PatentlyO reported on the steep decline in patent filings in January 2014 and notes that it is the lowest since October, 2011. IPKat covers two very important stories: one regarding the adoption of Collective Rights Management Directive by the EU Parliament that allows for multi-territorial licensing and management of licensees and the other regarding the increase in the fees charged by the European Patent office from April 2014.
This concludes the weekly review and we look forward to your continued readership.
