India’s patent policy: Big Pharma’s grouse?

/ By / Patent

In a congressional hearing last week, Roy Waldron, Chief Intellectual Property (IP) counsel of American Pharma giant, Pfizer raised concerns over India’s “protectionist” IP regime. The Capitol Hill testimony can be accessed here.   Waldron alleged that since the advent of the product patent regime in 2005, India has continually defied trade rules and supported the domestic generic industry at the expense of innovators. On the other hand Indian generic industry has increased its US sales dramatically. To quote “Three […]

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Pratibha Syntex lawsuit still pending before the Delhi High Court: Did Microsoft mislead the Californian Attorney General?

/ By / Copyright

For a brief background to this post, I point readers to two of my previous posts available over here and here, where I discussed an unfair competition lawsuit brought against an exporting Indian textile manufacturer, Pratibha Syntex, by the State of California on the grounds that it was using pirated software, thus giving it a competitive edge over Californian manufacturers who used legitimate computer software.  As I had mentioned earlier, the complaint filed by the Californian Attorney General was delightfully

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SpicyIP Tidbit: An IP Thriller from an IP lawyer

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In an exciting first for the community of intellectual property lawyers in India, Dr. Kalyan Kankanala has penned a thriller novel based, with intellectual property law in India as its central theme. We haven’t seen too many legal thrillers in the Indian market. The only author that I’m aware of in this genre of writing, is Aditya Sudarshan, an incredibly talented lawyer turned author whose first book was ‘A nice quiet holiday’. In the west however not only have we

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US Supreme Court Supports Parallel Imports: Lessons for India

/ By / Copyright

In a path-breaking development, the US Supreme Court endorsed the concept of international exhaustion and supported the parallel imports of copyrighted works.  This decision is of significant relevance to India, as a government committee headed by Prof Chadha of the NCAER is now considering whether or not to import international exhaustion principles into Indian copyright law.     Hopefully a ruling from the US, often seen as a very pro IP country should tilt the balance in favour of international exhaustion for

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IPAB’s first CL decision, resounding emphasis on public interest in CL proceedings

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The decision of India’s specialized IP tribunal on appeal against India’s first compulsory license granted by the Controller is available on the Board’s official website here. The Board’s chief Prabha Sridevan in an open court on March 4, 2013 dictated the order upholding the Controller’s decision for grant of compulsory license on Bayer’s patented drug, Sorafenib Tosylate. As Prof. Basheer noted earlier, to the delight of patients and generics, the opening sentence of the order states that “‘compulsory license’ is

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Government notifies Copyright Rules, 2013

/ By / Copyright

The Copyright Rules, 2013 was notified by the Ministry of Human Resources and Development on 14th March 2013. These new rules are pursuant to the amendments and new provisions introduced to the Copyright Act, 1958 through The Copyright Act (Amendment) Bill, 2012. The Draft Copyright Rules were released in August by the Copyright Office inviting comments of stakeholders and experts. In October, the Ministry of HRD also conducted a meeting with stakeholders and experts regarding the Rules. We have reason

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (March Week 3)

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SpicyIP Posts:  The week started with Mathews P. George’s two part post(here and here) to the 248th Report of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development on the Universities Research and Innovation Bill, 2012. The report was highly critical of the Bill and he discussed recommendations put forth by the committee regarding: strengthening the existing framework, shortage of faculty, apprehension about easy entry of foreign Universities in India, absence of monitoring mechanism and establishment of universities.  Next, Prashant Reddy brought

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Knock(ed) Out!

/ By / Copyright

Please note that this post stands corrected. Read our clarification here. Source Indian courts seem to be catching up with Bollywood rip-offs of Hollywood movies in terms of awarding proportionate damages to Hollywood studios. The Bombay High Court last week held the producers of Knock Out (2010 Bollywood movie) liable for copyright infringement and, decreed damages for Rs. 1.25 crores payable to 20th Century Fox. The Court after viewing both movies found that the makers of Knock Out had massively copied from the widely

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US Patent Reform – 2013: A brief look at the AIA

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On March 16, 2013, about 18 months after the United States (US) President signed it into law, the Leahy-Smith  – America Invents Act (“AIA”) (hereafter the Act) took effect.  The act is supposedly tailored to bring US patent law in sync with the patent systems of the rest of the world.   There are a slew of changes that impact filing, fees, issue etc. but the key provision relates to timing of patent filing.  In the US, before March 16,

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Breaking News: Second Compulsory Licensing Application Filed

/ By / Patent

Many of us wondered as to why there was no compulsory licensing (CL) application after Natco’s momentous victory in procuring India’s first CL more than a year ago. This licence was upheld only a week or so ago by the IPAB (the written order is expected anytime next week).     It appears that the jinx has finally broken! We’re given to believe (from very authentic sources) that a second CL application was just filed at the Indian Patent Office

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