Category Archives: Patent

University of Miami Wins Appeal at IPAB over Cancer Drug Patent ‘Coenzyme Q10 Formulations and Methods of Use’

by Praharsh Gour September 22, 2020

For the fourth time in past two months the IPAB allowed an appeal against the order of the Controller and granted patent in favor of the appellant. The IPAB through order dated 25th August, 2020, (pdf) allowed an appeal against the Controller of Patents’ (Respondent) rejection of the University of Miami’s (Appellant) application over a pharmaceutical composition comprising “Topical Co-enzyme Q10 (CoQ 10) Formulations and Methods of use” for treatment of cancer. Among other reasons, the Controller had deemed that…

Patent

Ibrutinib Patent Revocation: IPAB Says the Stay is Here to Stay

by Adyasha Samal September 18, 2020

Leave a Comment

Latest in the Ibrutinib patent saga is IPAB’s order maintaining the interim stay over the revocation of the anti-cancer drug patent. This comes at an interesting time, as a recent report by I-MAK suggests that US-based Biopharma Company AbbVie might be attempting to build a patent wall around Imbruvica (Ibrutinib’s market brand), having secured 88 patents out of 165 applications filed. Imbruvica currently generates a whopping $4.5 billion a year for AbbVie. In India, Pharmacyclics LLC (owned by AbbVie) had…

Patent

U.K. Supreme Court’s Landmark Ruling on SEPs: An Imperfect Solution, But Is There a Perfect One? (Part II)

by Adarsh Ramanujan September 16, 2020

1 Comment

[Disclosure: I represent/have represented clients on related and unrelated issues. Views expressed here are personal.] In Part I, I had summarised the U.K. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Unwired case. In this Part II, I share my critique of the judgement. While I have several comments, I have restricted myself to the principal ones for the present platform. Must a FRAND license always be global? At 1st glance, the U.K. Supreme Court’s judgment suggests that a FRAND license must always…

Patent

U.K. Supreme Court’s Landmark Ruling on SEPs: An Imperfect Solution, But Is There a Perfect One? (Part I)

by Adarsh Ramanujan September 16, 2020

Leave a Comment

[Disclosure: I represent/have represented clients on related and unrelated issues. Views expressed here are personal.] In a recent landmark ruling, the U.K. Supreme Court (here) dismissed the appeals filed by implementers of technical standards, i.e. Huawei, ZTE, against standard essential patent (SEP) holders, i.e. Unwired and Conversant. This is a well-known dispute and has previously been covered by this blog here, here, and briefly touched upon here. In this Part I, I will focus on summarising the ruling, reserving my…

SpicyIP Weekly Review (September 7 – 13)

by Adyasha Samal September 14, 2020

Leave a Comment

Topical Highlight When Covid-19 Shuttered Cinema Halls!: Should Producers Share Royalties from OTT Release of Films? In a guest post, Tanvi Sehgal weighs in on the impact of the COVID-19 induced shift from theatrical release of films to OTT release on the producers’ share of earnings. She explains how the pandemic shutting down movie theatres for such a long duration has forced producers to release their movies on OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hotstar. According to her, movies…

Opportunities Patent

Online Roundtable on ‘The Global Implications Unwired Planet v. Huawei: Lessons for India’s Evolving SEP Jurisprudence’ [September 11]

by SpicyIP September 10, 2020

Leave a Comment

We’re pleased to inform you that DPIIT IPR Chair, NLU Delhi is organising an online roundtable on ‘The Global Implications of Unwired Planet v. Huawei: Lessons for India’s Evolving SEP Jurisprudence’ at 3 p.m. tomorrow (September 11, 2020). For further details, please read the announcement below: Online Roundtable on ‘The Global Implications of Unwired Planet v. Huawei: Lessons for India’s Evolving SEP Jurisprudence’ September 11, 2020 Organiser: DPIIT IPR Chair, NLU Delhi Online Roundtable: The Global Implications of Unwired Planet v. Huawei:…

Patent

Yves Choueifaty v. Attorney General of Canada: An Interesting Development from Canada on Claim Construction and Patent Office Manuals

by Adarsh Ramanujan September 9, 2020

Leave a Comment

This time, I want to discuss recent judgement from the Federal Court of Canada – Yves Choueifaty v. Attorney General of Canada, 2020 FC 837 – available here. I found it interesting because it concerned the patentability of computer-related inventions (CRI) and addressed a situation where the Court found the Patent Office Manual to be erroneous. The case concerned the invention that claimed a computer-implemented method concerning investment portfolios. An in-depth assessment of the claims or the technology at hand…

Patent

Interim Injunctions: What’s The Damage? – Part II

by Swaraj Paul Barooah September 8, 2020

6 Comments

Meme with a pic of James Bond, and the caption saying "Name's Bond... Security Bond"

[This post was co-authored with Praharsh Gour. This is part II of our two-part post on interim injunctions. You can view Part I here.] In our previous post, we summarized some of the many issues with interim injunctions in high-tech patent matters. We also pointed to an earlier suggestion of doing away with the interim phase altogether. We highlighted that aside from the possible pro-patentee bias in the grant, there is also the issue of public interest perhaps not being…

Comparative Advertising Copyright Design Geographical Indication Innovation Others Patent Trademark

SpicyIP Weekly Review (August 31- September 6)

by Nikhil Purohit September 7, 2020

Leave a Comment

Topical Highlight T-Series’ Copyright Infringement Claim against Roposo: Intermediary Liability, Safe Harbour and Fair Dealing In this post, I analysed T-Series’ copyright infringement claim against Roposo. I first flagged two relevant features of the application- a music library and an option to ‘collaborate’. I explore whether Roposo can be considered an intermediary and argue that such holding is possible only for the ‘collaborate’ option, leading to personal liability for the music library. Subsequently, for the ‘collaborate’ option for which it…

Patent

Interim Injunctions: What’s the Damage? – A Summary

by Swaraj Paul Barooah September 2, 2020

4 Comments

Oprah meme, with text "You get an interim, you get an interim, everyone gets an interim!"

[This post has been co-authored with Praharsh Gour. His previous posts can be found here.] India’s tryst with interim injunctions in high tech patent disputes is a long, problematic one, as covered several times in this blog. Despite all the issues pointed out, and despite courts stating that it should be used judiciously, it probably surprises few observers to see it being used too frequently. Over the course of this two part post, we will first try to provide an…

Praharsh Gour { Hey Anon, Thank you for the comment and bringing this decision to my knowledge. I can only agree with you on this point. In fact if you read... }
{ There is also enough SC case laws to say that the suit can be thrown out if you suppress material facts. Every arguing lawyers favourite case - SP... }
Mathews George { The UK Supreme Court primarily viewed it as a contract law dispute. And based its reasoning on internal and external contexts surrounding the ETSI Policy. Having said that,... }
Praharsh { Dear Anon, Please note this second post is about when the trial phase is not being dispensed with, whereas Prof Basheer's paper is advocating the doing away of... }
{ Disappointing that none of professor Basheer's scholarship was cited in this post - he has an entire paper on whether interim injunctions are required in patent cases. }