Compulsory Licensing: Pot Vs Kettle

/ By / Patent

India’s first (post TRIPS) compulsory licence issued less than two months ago, much to the consternation of the United States, whose commerce secretary expressed deep displeasure noting that: “Any dilution of the international patent regime was a cause for deep concern for the US.” Given the posturing of the government then, I was rather surprised to see the toning down in the Super 301 report which was astonishingly nuanced in its assessment of the compulsory licence. Kudos to the drafters […]

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IPAB dismisses patent revocation petition for lack of evidence

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Image from here In a decision dated the 9th of March, 2012, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), dismissed a revocation petition under Section 64 of the Patents Act, 1970. The petition had been filed by The Travancore Mats & Matting Co. against patent no: 206494 which had been granted by the Patent Office for an invention titled “A method of making coir tufted rubber mats”.  The reason for dismissing the revocation petition was the failure of the petitioner to

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US District Court rules Tarceva patent valid: impact on India

/ By / Patent

Our regular readers would know that Roche had sued Cipla before Delhi High Court (DHC) claiming that Cipla’s generic product Erlocip violates Roche’s Indian Patent IN196774(“774 patent”) for ‘Erlotinib Hydrocloride’ or commonly known as “Tarceva patent”. Similarly, they would also know about the case between Roche and Natco where Roche had brought suit of infringement against Natco for infringing the same Tarceva Patent. The same Tarceva application (537/DEL/1996) was also the subject of a pre-grant opposition back in 2007 filed by Natco against Pfizer.

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April 2012: Controller’s decisions at the IPO

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April was comparatively relaxed at the Controller’s offices as compared to March.  Eight decisions were issued and three applications were allowed.  What is most interesting this month is the manner in which applications were allowed or refused. For example, one allowed case states: “Agents to the applicant has discussed/explained at length and reached to a conclusion to further amending his application and come back with the retyped pages in shortest possible time.  Applicant’s agent has filed such written response and amendments

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Tracking the inventors of Ranbaxy’s new anti-malarial drug

/ By / Innovation

A photograph of a few of the inventors, sourced from the MMV website. As discussed by Akshat in his guest post over here, the main invention in Ranbaxy’s new combination anti-malarial drug is the new chemical entity (NCE) by the name arterolane. While reading the several news reports on Ranbaxy’s new FDC anti-malarial drug, Synriam, I was quite surprised that nobody in the Indian press even bothered to mention the names of the inventors. This is in sharp contrast to

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USTR 301 Report surprisingly restrained on Bayer CL decision

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The Annual 301 Report by the United State Trade Representative (USTR) has recently been published by the Office of the USTR and can be accessed over here. Predictably, the USTR has once again put India on its ‘priority watch-list’ for poor compliance with the standards of intellectual property law expected by the U.S. The USTR 301 reports are usually quite aggressive in demanding higher standard of IP protections from all countries regardless of the domestic priorities of these individual countries.

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An Introduction to the recent Frontline issue on Indian Patent Law

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Frontline, in a series of articles its recent issue, discussed the recent developments in Indian Patent Law and its reverberations in the pharmaceutical industry and public health [ ‘Patent to plunder’ by Amit Sengupta, ‘A big step forward’ by C.P. Chandrasekhar, ‘Patents and the law’ by V. Venkatesan, ‘A welcome first’ by T.K. Rajalakshmi, ‘Western warnings’ by R. Ramachandran, ‘Question of efficacy’ by Leena Menghaney, ‘The current patent system is deeply flawed’, interview with Prof. Shamnad Basheer and ‘Drug and

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IPAB releases Annual Report on World IP day

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In a welcome first, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board has published its Annual Report on its website on April 26th which is recognized as World IP day. It also gives us an important wrap-up of the milestones in the last year. I don’t think the IPAB has ever come out with such a report in the past. The report can be accessed over here. (Image: Logo of the IPAB)  Some of the important milestones, as extracted from the report, are as follows: 

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Guest Post: The story behind Ranbaxy’s new drug

/ By / Innovation

Pursuant to my last post on Ranbaxy’s new anti-malarial drug, I received a few comments indicating a certain level of confusion about the exact nature of Ranbaxy’s invention. I therefore requested Akshat Rathi, a doctoral student in chemistry at the University of Oxford, to write us a guest post tracing the evolution and nature of Ranbaxy’s invention. Akshat also writes at the Allotrope, a blog focussed on the impact of science on society.  The story behind Ranbaxy’s new drug  By, 

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Ranbaxy’s new anti-malarial drug: A first for India?

/ By / Innovation

The last few days have witnessed at least a dozen news reports on the launch of Ranbaxy’s new anti-malarial drug – Synriam. Several of the news reports such as the one over here and here give the impression that this drug launch is the first of its kind in India. The Business Line report in particular claims that Ranbaxy has spent invested $30 million to develop this drug. A part of this claim can be traced to Ranbaxy’s press-release which

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