Patentability of Softwares: More Canon Fodder

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Patentability of softwares, it appears, has presented the academic community the opportunity of a lifetime to produce tomes and tomes of literature, quoting the same set of judgments over and over again forgetting that brevity has its own benefits and attraction. The latest judgment that has stirred up debates on blogs the world over is the Symbian Ltd. v. Comptroller General of Patents given by the High Court of Chancery Division in the UK. On a completely different and irrelevant…


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SpicyIP Tidbit: Spanish Court Upholds Pfizer’s Lipitor Patent

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Continuing with “the mother of all patent challenges”, the Spanish front seems to spell fortune for Pfizer. Earlier in 2007, a Spanish Court upheld Pfizer’s basic patent covering the calcium salt of atorvastatin, the active ingredient in Lipitor but invalidated a patent on a stabilized enantiomer formulation that includes atorvastatin. It appears that the Court of Appeals in Barcelona has reversed the lower’s court’s decision and has upheld the enantiomer patent as well which is due for expiry only in…


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SpicyIP Tidbit: Now Pfizer Sues Ranbaxy

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In SpicyIP’s 3 earlier posts, the on-going global struggle between Ranbaxy and Pfizer was reported. The latest news is that Pfizer has sued Ranbaxy alleging infringement of two of its Lipitor process patents. Here’s the complete article from MoneyControl: The world’s largest drug maker Pfizer has stepped up its offensive against Ranbaxy to block it from launching a generic version of its blockbuster heart drug Lipitor. Pfizer has sued Ranbaxy alleging that it has infringed two of Lipitor’s process patents…


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SpicyIP Tidbit: Govt. Disapproves Optical Policy Draft

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In an earlier post by Sumathi, a reference was made to the optical disk legislation. Last November, it was reported that the Government was scrutinising the recommendations made with regard to the optical disk law to check piracy in the film industry. The draft law was prepared by members of the film industry along with FICCI at the initiative of the Government. According to the Business Line, a study titled “The Effects of Counterfeiting and Piracy on India’s Entertainment Industry”…


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Patent

Bajaj-TVS Feud- The Judgment

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The danger with judging the worth of a patented invention or a patent application is that after understanding what the invention is all about, one tends to get wiser on account of an afterthought which makes the invention seem easy and or even obvious. It is absolutely imperative on the part of a patent examiner or a judge to control the urge to trivialise the invention so as to appreciate the inventor’s contribution at the time of making the invention…


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Patent

SpicyIP Tidbits: Pfizer goes weak at the “knees”

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In what seems to be a year with mixed fortunes for Pfizer so far, the ruling against the company by US Court of Appeals for Federal Circuit in its suit involving Teva Pharmaceuticals is the latest setback. Pfizer had 4 patents on Celebrex (celecoxib), its blockbuster arthritis drug- 5466823, 5563165, 5760068 and 5972986. According to the Orange Book Blog, the Court invalidated 5760068 on grounds of double patenting in view of 5563165;’068 still had one and a half years left…


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SpicyIP Tidbits: Still Some Spark Left in the Flame

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TVS Motors has shown why it still is the third largest two-wheeler manufacturer in the country. Not the one to lose heart and hope despite the injunction from the Madras High Court, TVS Motors relaunched its 125-cc motorcycle “Flame” on Monday with a single spark plug engine. The bike in its twin spark plug avatar was launched last December 13th (werent they triskaidekaphobic?) and lost the company a whopping Rs.100 crores this quarter alone. According to the Business Line, the…


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SpicyIP Tidbits: A Software Patent?

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All these days I was under impression that computer programmes a.k.a softwares were not patentable under s.3(k) of the Patents Act notwithstanding the presence of a teeny-weenie “per se”. May be the patent office is in an “innovative” mood for according to the Business Line, one Mr.Ken Georgie Mathew had applied 18 months ago for a data verification tool called the “Authentic Track Record” (ATR) and so far he has not received any objections. Is it because the Patent Office…


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Patent

SpicyIP Tidbits: Shush-ing the Gene

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Last evening, I was discussing the concept of gene silencing with a friend of mine out of necessity. To be honest, discussion would not be the word for “discussion” presupposes a certain amount of parity in knowledge and the level of understanding of both the parties on the subject, which by any stretch of imagination wasn’t the case here; so it wouldn’t be off the mark to say that I had requested him to “explain” the concept to me. Incidentally,…


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SpicyIP Tidbits: An “Incredible” Victory for Tourism Ministry

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Last December, Sumathi Chandrashekharan had reported that the Ministry of Tourism was involved in a legal tussle with Durga Das Publications over Brand India’s flagship logo “Incredible India” for its magazine. In 2002, the Ministry launched the Incredible India campaign and acquired a copyright over the tag line “Incredible !ndia” with an exclamation mark replacing the I in India. In 2003, Durga Das publications bagged a three-year contract for publishing the magazine under this name, which expired in 2007. Consequently,…


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