SpicyIP Tidbit: Retraction Watch posts restored

/ By / Copyright

As hoped, Retraction Watch posts regarding Dr. Anil Potti have been restored. Retraction Watch is a website solely dedicated to publishing academic paper retractions in the scientific-medical research community. Dr. Anil Potti had nineteen retractions which were duly reported by Retraction Watch. We covered the incident about an Indian plagiarizing website [Newsbulet.in] reporting against Retraction Watch for copyright violations here. Retraction Watch received a DMCA takedown notice on account of apparently ten ‘copied’ posts. The issue evoked strong responses from free […]

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Revisiting the Trans Pacific partnership agreement

/ By / Uncategorized

Last week’s State of the Union address highlighted important aspects of President Obama’s second term agenda. President Obama identified Trans Pacific Partnership(TPP) agreement as a top trade priority and reaffirmed his commitment to conclude negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement. To quote, “To boost American exports, support American jobs, and level the playing field in the growing markets of Asia, we intend to complete negotiations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership.” Image from here In an earlier article Swaraj had elucidated

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The Sugen v. Cipla post-grant opposition: The lost art of legal writing in the Patent Office

/ By / Patent

As Madhulika earlier blogged, the Patent Office after a circus of appeals filed by Sugen, once again revoked Sugen’s patent no. 2092951 on the grounds that it would be obvious, to a person skilled in the art, in light of the prior art produced by the opponent. Be that as it may, I would like to comment on the manner in which the opinion was written by the Controller and the deference or lack thereof to the precedents of higher

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Legality of trademark protection for deities in the context of Attukal deity trademark

/ By / Trademark

We reportedthat the Attukal Bhagawathy Temple Trust (“Trust”) in Kerala had secured trademark protection for the picture of its deity (Trademark No. 1420800) and the title ‘Sabarimala of Women’ (Trademark No. 1420799) under Class 42 – a residuary clause (for temple Services, social services, welfare services and cultural activities). The Division Bench of the Kerala High Court initiated suo moto case against the aforesaid registrations in early 2009 based on a petition faxed by Mr. Praveen Raj. The matter is

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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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