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

Heated arguments between Arun Jaitley (representing CIPLA) and Abhishek Singhvi (representing Roche) yesterday. The key issue was the validity of the patent. Jaitley cited a number of case law etc to establish that since this is a new patent, the validity attack should be taken seriously. He also argued that the Indian Patent Act does not grant a presumption of validity–a point that we discussed in our earliest posts on the Bilcare patent matter. Hearings will continue today as well.

Justice Ravindra Bhatt of the Delhi High Court heard the matter today. Justice Bhatt joined as an additional judge in 2004 and had a stellar career as a lawyer prior to this. He then moved to the writ side of the Delhi High Court. And then later to the original side–I learnt that he joint the “original” side of the Delhi High Court just 15 days back. So this could well be his first IP matter!! As expected, CIPLA filed