Category Archives: Patent

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Overlaps in IP Patent

Can Patents and Trade Secrets Co-exist? : Delhi High Court Answers in the Negative

by SpicyIP April 3, 2020

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We’re pleased to bring to you a post by Aditya Gupta on the Delhi High Court’s recent decision on the interplay between trade secrets and patents. Aditya is an attorney at Ira Law. He graduated from National Law University, Jodhpur and then pursued a master’s in law from Harvard Law School. Before co-founding Ira Law, he was part of another law firm for 7 years and then an associate at the chambers of Mr. Amit Sibal. Can Patents and Trade…

Patent

End of the Road for Bt Licensing Royalties in India

by Prashant Reddy April 1, 2020

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Reuters recently reported that the Government of India has “axed” the royalties that over 45 Indian seed companies had to pay Bayer (which acquired Monsanto) under IP licensing agreements which have been the centre of a massive legal dispute between Monsanto (before its acquisition by Bayer) and Nuziveedu (one of India’s biggest seed companies) for the last five years. For years, the Bt licensing agreements have earned Monsanto a fortune. While I don’t have the figures readily at hand, a…

Data Exclusivity Patent

CoViD-19 Pandemic Spurs Calls for ‘Openness’ in IP

by Divij Joshi March 31, 2020

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The CoViD-19 pandemic may well be humanity’s biggest collective challenge in a post-globalisation era. In the midst of this global emergency, the artificial scarcity produced by international and domestic intellectual property laws and norms is revealing itself to be a scourge to public health systems around the world – from restraining drug research and development to denying access to medical devices. The responses of various stakeholders will certainly have an immediate impact on CoViD-19 related public health responses, but its…

Patent

COVID-19: Invoking Fundamental Right to Health to Push Govt to Use Patent Law Levers

by SpicyIP March 29, 2020

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We’re pleased to bring to you an incisive guest post by Rahul Bajaj, arguing that it is not only wise for the Government to use the patent law flexibilities to ensure accessibility to medical devices required to combat COVID-19, but also mandated by the fundamental right to health guaranteed under the Constitution of India. It also reflects on the role that the courts can play in this regard. Rahul, a former fellow at SpicyIP, is an MPhil in Law candidate (Rhodes…

Corona and IP – Looking for the Right(s) Answers

by Swaraj Paul Barooah March 26, 2020

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The Covid 19 pandemic has now changed the way most of us are going about our day to day lives. In India, we are now on day 2 of our 21 day nation wide lock-down. In the midst of all that is going on now, Intellectual Property enthusiasts with a keen eye, would have noticed several IP related issues that have been cropping up, even if relatively under-discussed. For this current post, I thought I would do a round-up of…

Patent

The Need for an IP Policy to Build a Strategic Stockpile for Pandemics

by Prashant Reddy March 26, 2020

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Just as the country is coming to terms with the reality of the COVID pandemic, we are being warned of mass shortages of everything from quality masks to hazmat suits to diagnostic kits to ventilators and other crucial medical equipment. The Health Ministry should have prepared strategic stockpiles of this material in preparation of such a pandemic but unfortunately this has not been done. The challenge now for India, is to rapidly build up a stockpile that can cater to…

COVID-19: How Best Can the Indian IP Office Help its Stakeholders? [Updated]

by Latha Nair March 23, 2020

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In these unprecedented times where a pandemic has brought the globe to a standstill, the top-most concern of IP owners (of course, other than to save themselves from COVID-19) would be about meeting deadlines in IP prosecution. This is because, deadlines in IP prosecution are often hard deadlines, and if extendable, involve a fee – sometimes these require the filing of signed/ notarised/ stamped documents. This concern is equally and anxiously shared by IP lawyers who assist IP owners around…

Drug Regulation Patent

Delhi HC Allows Genentech’s Internal Expert to Inspect Reliance’s Documents in Trastuzumab Suit: Dilution of Confidentiality Club?

by Adarsh Ramanujan March 14, 2020

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On 2nd March, a Single Judge of the Delhi High Court in the case of Genentech Inc. and Ors. v. Drugs Controller General of India and Ors. passed an order, which effectively allowed Genentech’s in-house employee/expert to inspect the documents placed on record under a Confidentiality Club. This is the Trastuzumab litigation involving Reliance. This litigation saga has been covered on several occasions including here, here, here, here, here and here. When I first heard of this order, I was…

Data Exclusivity Patent

Patent Politics in the Time of Corona

by Swaraj Paul Barooah March 13, 2020

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The new coronavirus threat/scare seems to be increasing with every passing day. At the time of writing this, it is reported that there are 138,941 cases (of which 80,815 are in China), of which 70,727 have recovered, 57,317 in mild condition, 5,786 are serious, and 5,111 have died. India has 81 cases of which 4 have recovered and 1 person has died. The new Coronavirus, or COVID 19 as it is technically known is, is now the 7th known coronavirus (other…