SC on the new drug policy

The Supreme Court on last Wednesday gave the government a week to come up with a timeline for implementing its new drug-pricing policy. In the event of failure to comply with the Order, the Court will issue an interim order placing all the 348 medicines within the ambit of price-cap regime based on a product’s manufacturing cost. [See herefor Livemint report.] I blogged on the issue earlier. [See here.] The Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by Agriculture Minister Mr. Sharad […]

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India signs Nagoya protocol ahead of Hyderabad CBD meet

GoI yesterday announced that the Union Cabinet had approved the ratification of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing, which India had signed in May, 2011. The Nagoya Protocol, as we’ve written before was a step in the right direction, but a very small one. India, along with other countries like Brazil, is considered to be ‘mega-diverse’ and the Nagoya Protocol is expected to benefit such countries the most – or more correctly, to protect these countries which are most

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WIPO defers PPI observer status

“Member governments of the World Intellectual Property Organization yesterday approved all but one application for international nongovernmental observer status at the UN agency: Pirate Parties International“. William New from IP-Watch brought this to the public’s attention yesterday in his piece entitled, “Delay Of Pirate Parties’ WIPO Observer Status Raises Questions.  This is indeed bound to raise many questions. There are currently about 250 members accredited with Observer status and a look at the eligibility requirements for the international NGO status that they

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The need for iron-clad enforcement of Section 8 disclosure requirements

Ever since Justice Murlidhar’s order in the Chemtura judgment and Justice Sridevan’s subsequent order in Tata Chemicals, most patent agents have been filing almost all the relevant details regarding foreign patent filings, including the examiners reports generated by the USPTO, JPO and EPO. However this is not always the case. There are cases where the patent applicant is faced with a ‘lose-lose’ situation i.e. if he were to disclose the details of an adverse office action at a foreign patent office he

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NBA set to prosecute Monsanto’s Indian subsidiary: What about Cornell, USAID & the DBT?

In a story which ran today on PTI, the Chairperson of the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has reportedly informed the press that his organization is all set to prosecute Monsanto’s Indian subsidiary (Mahyco) in a criminal court for violation of India’s Biological Diversity Act, when Mahyco allegedly accessed ‘germ-plasm’ related to certain varieties of brinjal. According to the PTI report the Chairperson states “The company has used local variety of brinjal to develop BT brinjal. We are in the advanced

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Breaking News: Delhi High Court recognizes international exhaustion under the Indian trademark law

In a landmark decision, the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court yesterday recognized the principle of international exhaustion under the Trade Marks Act, 1999. The Bench comprising of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Siddharth Mridul partially allowed an appeal filed by Kapil Wadhwa (Appellant) against the order of the Single Bench in Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. & Anr. v. Kapil Wadhwa & Ors [C.S. (OS) No. 1155/2011] dated February 17, 2012. The Appellants were represented by Sai Krishna and

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Breaking news: Cipla succeeds in revoking Pfizer / Sugen’s patent on Sunitinib

The Patent Office in a recent post grant opposition proceeding brought by Cipla against Pfizer / Sugen’s patent on the drug  Sunitinib, revoked Indian patent IN209251.  The drug Sunitinib is used to treat diseases caused by abnormal protein kinase activity. Interestingly the patent was revoked primarily on the ground that it lacked an inventive step (Section 2(1)(j)).  Pfizer / Sugen had earlier succeeded in defending a compulsory license (CL) proceeding earlier for the same patent.  The CL proceeding was withdrawn by

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TKDL poised to draw first blood before Indian patent office; long road ahead

Finally, almost thirteen years after it was first conceptualized, the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) is on path to having an Indian TK related patent application, filed by an Indian citizen, being struck down as non-patentable.  I’d like to take a small slice of credit for this particular case because this was a case I had pointed out on the blog earlier this year, as a part of a series of posts on the TKDL. The focus of those posts

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ICANN set to change the topography of the internet

Mr Arun Mohan had written a guest post for us back in 2011 when ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced they would liberalise the gTLD system. I am writing this post is to substantiate the developments of that announcement, but first to back up a bit and explain the background to this. (Warning: in analysing and predicting the growth of the internet, I may have used more space on the internet than our standard posts with this

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Call for Papers: Christ University, Law Journal

With great pleasure, The Journals and Publications Society, School of Law, Christ University, invites contributions on contemporary issues of law from legal professionals, activists, academics and students for the second issue of its biannual peer-reviewed, Christ University Law Journal (CULJ), ISSN 2278-4322, to be published in January 2013. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 1. Submissions would be entertained under the following heads: ·         Articles: 6,000- 10,000 words (inclusive of footnotes) ·         Case Comments and Book Reviews: 2,000-4,000 words (inclusive of footnotes) ·         Legislative

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