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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SpicyIP Tidbits: Shush-ing the Gene

/ By / Patent

Last evening, I was discussing the concept of gene silencing with a friend of mine out of necessity. To be honest, discussion would not be the word for “discussion” presupposes a certain amount of parity in knowledge and the level of understanding of both the parties on the subject, which by any stretch of imagination wasn’t the case here; so it wouldn’t be off the mark to say that I had requested him to “explain” the concept to me. Incidentally,

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What’s the solution to YouTube’s infringing tactics?

/ By / Copyright

Very recently Sumathi had informed us that the Utube-Tseries litigation may end because the parties seem to be headed for an out of court settlement. SpicyIP however was curious about how other countries are dealing with the growing complaints of copyright infringement against online content providers and decided to research a little on it. We dug up some mildly interesting material.Apparently late in 2007 Google Video had been held liable for copyright infringement of a documentary called ‘Tranquillity Bay’ by

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The TCM quotient!

/ By / Uncategorized

Patriotic as I am, I concede albeit grudgingly, Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) has scored a few brownie points over mine (read that as Indian Indigenous med) My years in the west, the Chinese Po Chai Pills became my oft resorted fix to combat the ill effects of Styrofoam food. Not that I relied any less on Pudin Hara,….sadly it was not available on the American shelves as compared to its Chinese counterpart. In comparison, our Ayurveda after languishing in a state

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FM radio vs Music industry: a TRAIng story

/ By / Copyright

Radio junkies among SpicyIP’s readers may have been following reports of TRAI’s recent proposals closely. Among these include allowing news broadcasts on FM radio, higher FDI in radio channels, district-level FM radio licenses and more than one channel per broadcaster in a district. There’s a copyright/royalty angle to this story that has not received the attention it deserves. Soma Das at FE focuses on the issue in this piece. Das says that the proposed switch from city to district licenses

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SpicyIP Petition to bear fruit by early 2009

/ By / Patent

As most of you will recollect SpicyIP has been lamenting for some time now about the lack of a digitised database on patents granted by the Indian Patent Office. In an inspired bid to give vent to our collective frustrations on this matter Shamnad came up with the idea of sending a SpicyIP I-Petition to the Government of India in regards this sorry state of affairs. The SpicyIP I-Petition was a huge success because so many of you signed up,

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The Miserly care not about safety: Drug prices questioned

/ By / Innovation

A new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation, USA Today, and Harvard shows that most Americans now want drug prices regulated. The study’s summary shows people are having a tough time paying their mounting drug bills- leading to a situation where they either do not take their medicines or reduce the required dosage. This is one of the main reasons they would like drug prices reduced. It is however strange and worrisome that their primary problem with the pharmaceutical industry

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SpicyIP Tidbits: An “Incredible” Victory for Tourism Ministry

/ By / Uncategorized

Last December, Sumathi Chandrashekharan had reported that the Ministry of Tourism was involved in a legal tussle with Durga Das Publications over Brand India’s flagship logo “Incredible India” for its magazine. In 2002, the Ministry launched the Incredible India campaign and acquired a copyright over the tag line “Incredible !ndia” with an exclamation mark replacing the I in India. In 2003, Durga Das publications bagged a three-year contract for publishing the magazine under this name, which expired in 2007. Consequently,

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