India’s First Doha Case: Has Nepal Issued a Notitication?

/ By / Patent

Pursuant to our posts on the Natco’s application for a Doha Style Compulsory license to export two anti-cancer drugs patented by Roche/Pfizer, there have been some articles on this theme in the mainstream media. We bring you two of them in this post. For our earlier posts, see here (in particular see the exchange with Tahir Amin in the “comments” section of the blog post), and here. Tatum Anderson wrote a piece in IP Watch and Jonathan Allen reports on […]

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A Patently Preposterous Patent?

/ By / Uncategorized

“…be careful what you say in your blogs—blogs can work for you by denying property rights to others, they can work against you by exposing your ideas prematurely or narrowing your time window to apply for a patent, and they can establish a trail of evidence that a litigant can use against you to show a judge that your invention is an obvious extension of prior art.” So goes the blog entry which has now set the stage for the

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SpicyIP Tidbits: Geographical Indications- Just a cup of tea!

/ By / Uncategorized

The Indian tea industry is now making use of GIs to help globally promote sale of the product. While Darjeeling has long been registered as a logo and has secured GIs in several countries (including the USA, UK, and a collective mark in the EU), the Tea Board plans to protect teas from Assam and the Nilgiris this year. The Chairman of the Tea Board, Mr.Basudeb Banerjee, said at the 2nd Global Dubai Tea Forum 2008 that this was a

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A taxing situation for pharma companies

/ By / Uncategorized

In extension of an earlier post the Hindu Business Line has reported on the matter in greater detail. Examining why Indian pharma companies are pushing so hard for tax incentives we see that: greater regulation of drug prices in the domestic market, a depreciating dollar and pressure on pricing in large markets such as the US, has left the Indian pharmaceutical industry at the crossroads.In the last nine months, only players with wider geographical presence (with a multiple currency exposure)

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India’s First "Doha" Case: Natco, Pfizer and Roche will be Heard Soon…

/ By / Patent

Sarah Hiddleston from the Hindu reports on a hearing to decide whether or not India should issue its first compulsory license for the export of Pfizer’s Sunitnib and Roches’ Erlotinib to Nepal. We had blogged on this application earlier here, setting out the text of section 92A and the various legal issues involved with this compulsory licensing application. “The government is to consider whether or not it should allow its drugs companies to manufacture patented medicines for export to poor

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Is the Sheen Wearing off?

/ By / Uncategorized

If reports from the industry are any indication, the signs are that the appreciation of the Rupee combined with an acute shortage of trained professionals for basic research are taking its toll on India’s image as a Research and Development outsourcing hub. According to Mr.Pari Natarajan, Chief Executive of Zinnov, an R&D consultancy firm: “Some companies witnessed a 20 percent rise last year in the cost of running their R&D operations in India. If this trend continues, the cost advantage

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The .Asia domain launched under a ‘sunrise policy’

/ By / Trademark

The DotAsia Organization, an umbrella organization of various national top-level domain registries around Asia (including .IN in India), has launched the global “.Asia” Internet domain for the Asia region under a sunrise policy which gives a preference to trademark owners and celebrities. (Press release available here) Most domain name launches are a nightmare for trademark owners and celebrities since it means protecting their trademark and identity in yet another jurisdiction. More troubling for them however is the fact that most

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Natco’s ‘compulsory licensing’ request to come up for hearing next week

/ By / Uncategorized

IP Watch reports that Natco’s request for a compulsory license to export anti-cancer drugs to Nepal, is going to come up for hearing by the end of February. (Full story is available here) As most of our readers must know SpicyIP had covered this case extensively a couple of weeks ago. The request for compulsory licensing was made under S. 92A of the Patent Act, which allows for ‘compulsory licensing for export of patented pharmaceutical products in certain exceptional circumstances’.

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Search for Traditional Remedies for Bird Flu

/ By / Uncategorized

In a major institutional boost towards applying traditional Indian medicine to modern day afflictions, the National Institute of Siddha (NIS), Chennai has announced that it would jointly work with six other institutions namely, University of Madras, Anna University, Dr. M.G.R.Medical University, King Institute, MadrasMedicalCollege and Tamil Nadu Veterinary and AnimalSciencesUniversity, in the fight against bird flu. In this connection, a day-long session was held at NIS on Microbiology, Virology and Clinical Parameters in Avian Flu (Siddha perspective). The details are

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Bloopers Galore

/ By / Uncategorized

Mysteriously, another form of Intellectual Property has cropped out of nowhere. Introducing the “Geographical Indicator Patent” also referred to as GIP. Atleast that is what The Telegraph says: “Pakistan opposes Jammu and Kashmir’s efforts to get a geographical indicator patent (GIP) on its centuries-old Sozni shawls, saying this embroidery craft is in vogue in its part of Kashmir, too. The neighbouring country’s traders want Sozni shawls made in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir included under the patent Kashmiri Sozni. Jammu and Kashmir’s Craft

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