Guest Post: The complex problem of developing modern drugs from Ayurveda

/ By / Biological Diversity

Today, we have for our readers, a guest post by Priyanka Pulla, a freelance journalist, on the difficulties in developing modern drugs from Ayurveda. A couple of weeks ago, Priyanka had written this excellent piece, titled “Ayurveda: Hoax or Science?” which featured as the cover story on Open magazine. After reading the story, I invited Priyanka to write us a guest post on the Ayurvedic drug industry and she has indulged us with the following post on the issues faced […]

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SpicyIP Weekly Review- ( February Week 3)

/ By / Uncategorized

SpicyIP posts: The week started with some good news brought to our notice by Sai Vinod, indicative of the government’s inclination to seriously consider the compulsory licensing route for cancer treatment drugs. The Patent Office issued a public notice on February 12, 2013 directing all patentees and license holders to submit Form 27 applications for each calendar year by end of March for the previous year, failure of which would make the patentee liable to a fine of up to

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Blocking (Counting) your Chickens before they hatch? DoT stifles Criticism against IIPM following Court Order

/ By / Uncategorized

Image from here Most of the readers who come from India will probably be familiar with the names of the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) and its director Arindam Chaudhuri, if for no other reason than the carefully planned publicity drive that the said names have featured in during the last few years. Right from its inception, IIPM has been subjected to criticism on several grounds, especially regarding the claims made on behalf of the institution regarding its

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Accessibility of Public Libraries to Persons with Disabilities.

/ By / Copyright

The issue of accessibility of public libraries to people with disabilities (PWDs) is an issue that is considered worldwide. In India, it has received an impetus in 2012 after the Copyright Amendment Act was passed by the Parliament. Post the 2012 Amendment, Section 52 of the Copyright Act enables libraries to convert their collections into formats accessible to PWDs free of cost.  In this context, 20 disability rights groups wrote to the Ministers of Culture, HRD and Social Welfare requesting

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The ‘Global’ Fund being criticized

/ By / Patent

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was created in 2002 in order to attract, manage and disburse resources to fight these three deadly diseases across the world. Since its inception, as reported, the Global Fund has supported more than 1,000 programs in 151 countries, providing AIDS treatment for 4.2 million people, anti-tuberculosis treatment for 9.7 million people and 310 million insecticide-treated nets for the prevention of malaria. It has also become the main multilateral funder in global

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Spicy IP Tidbit: Indian patent office puts an end to Sunitinib saga

/ By / Others

Image from here   Pfizer/Sugen was granted a patent on anti-cancer drug Sunitib (Patent number: 209251) on Oct 5, 2007.Nearly 5 years later in a post grant opposition initiated by Cipla, this patent was revoked by the patent office on the grounds of obviousness. An excellent analysis of this decision is covered here.     As reported by Prashant, in a rather surprising turn of events, patentees (Pfizer/Sugen) filed a writ petition before Delhi High court requesting that the revocation decision

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The G.I. Registry digitizes all G.I. records: Transparency zindabad! Controller-General zindabad!

/ By / Uncategorized

Finally, after years of agony that we have experienced while attempting to access information related to the grant of geographical indications in India, the Controller General Chaitanya Prasad has issued a public notice informing the general public that all public records pertaining to the G.I. Registry have now been made available on the website of the G.I. Registry. I have checked the new website and I kid you not, my eyes actually welled up with tears of joy when I

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Dorling Kindersley v. Sanguine Technical Publishers

/ By / Copyright

A recent Delhi High Court order passed on 21 January, 2013  with respect to copyright licensing has come to our notice. An analysis of the judgement has been attempted in this blog post. Facts: In 2009, Pearson Education entered into an agreement with Sanguine Technical Publishers and its three partners, M.R.Kamalakar Pandit, Lal.M.Prasad and Dr.D.Ganesh Rao to co-brand engineering books. The agreement was for a period of 48 months and could be extended to 60 month.In 2012, Pearson was informed

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BMS Hepatitis Patent Invalidated: A Viral Effect for India?

/ By / Uncategorized

In a development with significant ramifications for India, a US district court recently invalidated a pharmaceutical patent covering Baraclude (Entecavir), a leading anti-viral drug for Hepatitis B patients. The drug brings in more than a billion dollars each year for BMS!  The invalidation was pursuant to a law suit bought by BMS (the patentee) against Teva, a leading Israeli generic company. This drug is of particular interest to India, given a roaring patent contest on this front between BMS and

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Patent prosecution highway: A potential game changer for India

/ By / Uncategorized

     The patent prosecution highway (PPH) is a kind of bidirectional work sharing agreement between two patent offices which allows examiners of one patent office to reuse search and examination results already conducted by another patent office. This post aims to explore how India might possibly benefit by becoming a part of the patent prosecution highway program.  The USPTO extended its first patent prosecution highway as a pilot program with Japan in July 2006. Since then the US patent prosecution highway program

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