Following the concerns raised over allegations of lack of uniform standards of the Indian Patent Office in part I of this post series, this post attempts to put forth details of the various patent applications made by Indian companies (claiming patent for variants of imatinib mesylate). The aim is to get readers familiar with this area to comment on the possible outcome of these applications given the rigorous Section 3(d) standards as introduced applied in the Novartis case. To reiterate,

In an article titled “India rejects Patent to Glivec’s Second Variant,” the Business Standard reported that the Swiss drug manufacturing multinational, Novartis AG, had been dealt with another blow by the Indian Patent Office. The Patent Office, in its March 30 ruling, accepted the pre-grant oppositions filed by Indian drug firms Sun Pharma, Okasa and others against Novartis’s five-year-old patent application over the alpha crystal form of Novartis’s blockbuster cancer medicine, Glivec. This setback follows the steps of the erstwhile