USV wins appeal against USPTO decision.

/ By / Patent

The latest as reported by PharmaBiz.com and Business Line is that USV Ltd. an Indian Pharma company has won against an appeal against an Order of the USPTO over a drug salt donepezil oxalate. The appeal against the USPTO Order lay with the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences which rendered its decision on Feb 5th, 2008. The decision is available on the website of the Board. The appeal was Appeal No. 2007-4478. At the examination stage the examiner had […]

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SpicyIP Tidbits: SC refuses to grant Ranbaxy relief in comparative ad case

/ By / Comparative Advertising, Trademark

The Supreme Court refused to stay a Gujarat High Court decision restraining Ranbaxy from airing its controversial ads directed against Paras Pharma’s ‘Moov’ brand. BS has picked up an agency report on this here. The Supreme Court today refused to give any relief to pharma major Ranbaxy Laboratories that is seeking permission to air its advertisement which allegedly disparaged “Moov”, the pain reliever brand belonging to its rival group Paras Pharmaceuticals. The Gujarat High Court, while allowing Ahmedabad-based Paras’ appeal,

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SpicyIP Tidbits: Pfizer goes weak at the “knees”

/ By / Patent

In what seems to be a year with mixed fortunes for Pfizer so far, the ruling against the company by US Court of Appeals for Federal Circuit in its suit involving Teva Pharmaceuticals is the latest setback. Pfizer had 4 patents on Celebrex (celecoxib), its blockbuster arthritis drug- 5466823, 5563165, 5760068 and 5972986. According to the Orange Book Blog, the Court invalidated 5760068 on grounds of double patenting in view of 5563165;’068 still had one and a half years left

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SpicyIP Tidbits: Still Some Spark Left in the Flame

/ By / Uncategorized

TVS Motors has shown why it still is the third largest two-wheeler manufacturer in the country. Not the one to lose heart and hope despite the injunction from the Madras High Court, TVS Motors relaunched its 125-cc motorcycle “Flame” on Monday with a single spark plug engine. The bike in its twin spark plug avatar was launched last December 13th (werent they triskaidekaphobic?) and lost the company a whopping Rs.100 crores this quarter alone. According to the Business Line, the

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SpicyIP Tidbits: A Software Patent?

/ By / Uncategorized

All these days I was under impression that computer programmes a.k.a softwares were not patentable under s.3(k) of the Patents Act notwithstanding the presence of a teeny-weenie “per se”. May be the patent office is in an “innovative” mood for according to the Business Line, one Mr.Ken Georgie Mathew had applied 18 months ago for a data verification tool called the “Authentic Track Record” (ATR) and so far he has not received any objections. Is it because the Patent Office

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Cheap home movies: the death is nigh?

/ By / Copyright

A year or so of the Indian home entertainment market going into disarray after Moser Baer’s (MB) price cuts, this TOI market report suggests that cheap home videos might be unprofitable after all, and we might relive the days of expensive VCDs (and I thought they were outdated!) and DVDs… Regular readers of this blog might recall SpicyIP’s occasional references to the pricing strategy used by the optical disc major, and how its marketing tactics were not only a deterrent

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Spicy Tidbits: India on a roll- Filings galore!

/ By / Patent

India and Indian companies seem to have started off this quarter of the year with a filing bonanza! Just today, two applications were reported in the news from India- one granted, and the other filed. 1. The ‘Mysore Mallige’ – a variety of jasmine unique to Karnataka, was given the Geographical Indication status, giving the local community the exclusive rights to cultivate these flowers. The report extensively covers the lost glory of Indian botany, which was heavily coveted at one

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US Patent Reform: Implications for Indian Pharma

/ By / Uncategorized

CH Unni of the Mint reported sometime back on the US patent reform and how it was likely to impact Indian pharma companies. He notes in particular that: “Indian pharmaceutical firms, which make most of their revenues and profits from the manufacture of off-patent, or generic, drugs, are set to play a larger role in the US, the world’s biggest drug market. That is, if a US plan to reform patent laws by including provisions for what is called post-grant

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Exporting Bayh Dole to India: Potential Lessons from a Duke Study

/ By / Patent

In earlier posts analysing the Indian version of the Bayh Dole legislation and its implications (see here and here), we noted as below: “…the bill also does not give an inventor the discretion to decide whether or not his/her invention is best left in the public domain. Rather, such a discretionary right is only given to the government funding agency (section 5 (3)). As our readers can appreciate, in some critical areas of science, it may make sense to encourage

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Split Wide Open: Patent on Stomach Medicine effectively monopolised.

/ By / Drug Regulation, Patent

In a revelation that has sent shockwaves in the Pharma industry, Reckitt Benckiser was allegedly found to have extended the monopoly they had on the stomach medicine “Gaviscon”! Internal documents that were recently leaked to the public, indicate that the Company had schemed with NHS to avoid releasing a generic name for the product in 2000. This was achieved by extending influence over the regulatory bodies. Therefore, on payment of an exorbitant amount (incidentally, three times higher than for any

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