Gauri Kamath of Businessworld writes a fascinating article on the CIPLA infringement strategy. See her report here, which I’ve copied below: Launch First, Fight Later “The Delhi high court is currently hearing a high-profile patents lawsuit that has the potential to change the rules of the game in India. In a first, Mumbai-based drug maker Cipla has launched a copycat or generic version of a drug with the full knowledge that the original has been patented in India. The product

Dr Gopakumar Nair, an expert on patent issues and founder of the reputed Patent Gurukul site has sent us some great details on the dates re: the patent applications in the Tarceva case. The dates are very critical to issues such as novelty, time for filing post grant opposition etc. He writes as below: “Indian Patent Application No. 537/DEL/1996 A filed on 13th March, 1996 has been granted as 196774 and published on 13th July, 2007 in the Official Journal

Readers will recollect our earlier posts on the “pricing” issue in this patent litigation and our plea to disentangle “pricing” from “patentability”. A conflation in this regard will only lead to convoluted patent jurisprudence in this country. Does anyone know what the actual pricing is in the Tarceva case? News reports such as the Hindu and the Mint state the price of Roche’s drug is Rs 4800 per tablet, while CIPLA sells at Rs 1600. I’ve heard however that Abhishek

CIPLA’s counsel, Arun Jaitley concluded his arguments on the 24th of Jan. The matter will now come up on the 31st of Jan. And all eyes will be on Abhishek Singhvi (counsel for Roche) who will be doing the rejoinder on the 31st and stated in court that he would counter each one of CIPLA’s arguments on invalidity. Singhvi was great on the first day and then withered away after Jaitley came on the scene. We’ll have to see if

An earlier post noted that CIPLA objected to the high pricing by Roche of it’s cancer drug, Tarceva (Erlotinib) and was therefore resorting to the drastic step of infringing its patent. Paradoxically, CIPLA has just been issued a notice by the NPPA (National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority) for allegedly over-pricing its antibiotic, Ciprofloxacin!! Recall our earlier post in this regard titled “CIPLA Milking Indian Consumers: Charity Does Not Begin at Home”. CH Unnikrishnan of the Mint Reports: CIPLA Gets Fresh Notice