Accessing Patent Office’s Order in India’s Second Compulsory Licensing Case Openly: EBC Helps Yet Again

Did any of you recently try searching online for a copy of the Patent Office’s order rejecting the second compulsory license application that was filed in India by BDR Pharma for BMS’s patented anti-cancer drug ‘Dasatinib’? Most of you who did, I’m sure, were met only with disappointment.

This order (dated October 29, 2013) is, sadly and surprisingly, not available on the Patent Office’s website. In fact, it’s nowhere to be found on the internet except on LinkedIn Slideshare here. Thanks to the kind soul who uploaded it!

It’s ironic that we don’t have open access to some of the most significant orders and judgments in this age of information overload when we are constantly struggling to sift the important from the unimportant.

Open access, as all of you know, is one of the core ideals of SpicyIP’s mission of democratizing the discussion on IPR issues. And Eastern Book Company (EBC), a leading law publisher, has once again come forward to help us in this mission. Earlier, they had created searchable digitised copies of the Ayyangar Committee Reports on Patent Law and Trademark Law on our request, which we had uploaded on our Resources page, here and here. And this time around, they have digitised the aforementioned order of the Patent Office for us. This order copy can now be viewed on our website here. Our heartfelt gratitude goes out to EBC and its director, Sumeet Malik for digitising these important documents and helping make searchable copies of them openly accessible to all!

Coming back to the Patent Office’s website, I wonder why this particular order is unavailable when many other orders passed on the same day are available. We urge the Patent Office to urgently look into this and ensure that all orders passed by it are made accessible (preferably, in searchable format) on its website.

If any of you know of any other important Indian IP judgments and orders that are not openly accessible, do let us know and we’ll try and secure a copy of them and upload them on our website. And, those of you who have copies of such judgments/orders (which are otherwise inaccessible), please send them across to us and we’ll make them available on our blog.

Image from here