Patent

Fear Won’t Take You Anywhere: Delhi HC Revisits Bolar Exception, Rules Apprehensions Cannot Deny Liberty under Section 107A

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The Delhi High Court in an order dated 20th July, 2021 vacated an ex-parte interim injunction (pdf), allowing the SMS Pharmaceuticals to export Merck’s patented anti-diabetic drug ‘Sitagliptin’ for R&D purposes on the condition that it files an affidavit mentioning the quantities of the drug exported and undertaking that the export is only for the above said purpose. While coming to this understanding, the court relied extensively on the Single Judge’s and Division Bench’s decisions in Bayer v. Union of…


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COVID-19 Data Exclusivity Patent Trade Secret

Compulsion for Compulsory Licenses for Covid Vaccines Climbs: But Are They the Cure?

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On 11th May, it was reported that Kerala High Court has sought a response from the Central government on a PIL seeking direction to the government to invoke the compulsory license (CL) provisions for the COVID-19 vaccines. In the PIL, the Petitioner (Adv. Gopakumar GV) argues that in the present crisis resorting to CL will assist the nation to ramp up the quantity of vaccine output and thus overcome its scarcity. As reported before, the government is already facing a…


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COVID-19 Patent

Centre Sees No Compulsion to Issue Compulsory Licenses for Covid Drugs

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May 2021 has been an interesting month so far for compulsory licenses. First the Supreme Court inquired about the Government’s position on issuing CLs for COVID-19 related drugs and vaccines, then Natco filed an application requesting a compulsory license for Baricitinib. This is followed by Delhi HC’s interim order, where it too hinted that the Central government could explore the alternative of compulsory licensing. Even on the international front, one of the major opponents of the compulsory license mechanism- the…


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COVID-19 Patent

A Recipe for Disaster: Export Bans, TRIPS Waiver and Hyper Nationalism

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(Long post ahead) On 23rd April, Ned Price, a spokesperson for the US State Department, revealed that the Biden administration is not considering lifting the export bans on the necessary raw materials for the COVID-19 vaccine. This refusal comes in response to the requests (see here and here) made by the SII CEO Adar Poonawalla to get rid of the export bans and assist in ramping up the outputs of vaccines in the global market. (Side note:  Back in Feb,…


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COVID-19 Drug Regulation Patent

Indian Govt. Permits Manufacture of Covaxin by Haffkine Institute – But Why Not Others Too?

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(This post has been co-authored with Swaraj Barooah) In what seems like a  whiff of good news amidst the debacle surrounding availability of  COVID-19 vaccine in India, the Central Government has permitted the Haffkine Institute to manufacture Covaxin, on  a “technology transfer” basis, for a period of one year. This is definitely needed and hopefully will address the vaccine shortage in the country to some extent. But does this mean that the Central Government had the IP and technology transfer…


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Patent

Madras High Court Grants Interim Injunction to Kibow Biotech, Making Problematic Observations on Patentability of Subject Matter

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Recently Madras High Court added another tale in the litigation scrimmage between US corporate Kibow Biotech and Indian entities La Renon Healthcare Pvt. Ltd. and Stanford Labs Pvt. Ltd. (not to be confused with the American university) by “making absolute” a previously granted interim injunction against the Indian entities, via its order dated 01/04/2021 (pdf).  Back in 2013 we had reported about a rare occurrence in Indian IP litigation where the IPAB’s order against the revocation of a patent was…


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Breaking: President Promulgates Tribunal Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance 2021

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IPAB has been in the eye of the storm since its inception. While there are ardent believers of the institution (See here and here), there are equally strong arguments by the ones against it (few of them advanced by the former Chairperson of the institution itself!) (See here here and here). A few months ago, the Executive seemingly laid the debate to rest by introducing the Tribunal Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Bill 2021, proposing to scrap IPAB. However,…


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Geographical Indication

The Third to Tango: After Pakistan, Nepal Opposes India’s GI Application for Basmati

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In November, 2020, Varsha wrote a detailed piece on the ongoing dispute between India and Pakistan on registration of GI over Basmati in the EU. Seemingly, after months of speculations (here and here) Nepal has finally joined the fight, opposing India’s application. This perhaps makes it the first IP disputes between the three South Asian countries.  While a more detailed post on this opposition will follow soon, I would like to quickly highlight a few interesting facts surrounding this event…


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Justice Manmohan Singh Holds Hearings at IPAB Despite Supreme Court Ruling

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Heard it through the grapevine and saw in the causelist that Retd. Justice Manmohan Singh is still holding hearings in the IPAB and passing orders. Just a couple of days ago we reported that the application for Justice Singh’s extension as the IPAB Chairperson was rejected by the Supreme Court. The Court in its judgement (pdf) expressly noted that the tenure of the incumbent Chairperson ended on 21.09.2019 and further rejected the notion that the incumbent must remain as the…


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Copyright Geographical Indication Patent Plant Variety Protection Trademark

Breaking: Finance Minister Proposes a Draft Bill in Lok Sabha to Shut Down IPAB

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Just hours ago we broke the story about the Supreme Court judgement (pdf) dismissing the application seeking extension of the incumbent IPAB Chairperson and now we are in knowledge of an immensely interesting Draft Bill (pdf) introduced in the Lok Sabha which proposes to shut IPAB for good! The Bill was introduced the day before yesterday (11.02.2021) by the Union Finance Minister Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, bearing the title “The Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation And Conditions Of Service) Bill, 2021”. While seeking…


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