NOVARTIS CASE TRANSFERRED TO THE IPAB

Pursuant to the last post on this topic, the Madras (Chennai) High Court has transferred the Novartis matter to the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). As I’d mentioned earlier, this is circuitous, as the matter is likely to find its way back to the High Court, by way of a writ petition against the order of the IPAB. For those of you interested in a succinct exposition of this case, read this article from IP-Watch, a news service that is […]

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NOVARTIS CASE BEFORE THE IPAB?

Lawyer’s Collective, the leading public interest service provider in India that represents patient groups in the Novartis case does a great job of keeping us updated on what’s going on in court. Their latest email on the “commons law” email listserv talks about a potential shift of the Novartis proceedings from the High Court to the IPAB (Intellectual Property Appellate Board). “Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 01:25:12 -0700 (PDT)From: “chan park” To: [email protected], [email protected]: [Commons-Law] Novartis Update 3.4.07 The Indian

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ACADEMICS AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE JUDICIARY

Just came across Adam Liptak’s interesting piece titled “When Rendering Decisions, Judges Are Finding Law Reviews Irrelevant” in the New York Times. Liptak captures an interesting judicial perspective on how relevant US law review articles really are. Very important lessons here, particularly for Indian academics that seek to make impact on the judiciary. Particularly relevant in the context of intellectual property, where we are bound to see a large number of cases in the post pharma patent environment. Unfortunately, the

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BIG PATENTS ARRIVE IN INDIA!! FIRST USEFUL PATENT DATABASE

As many of us know, the Indian Patent Office does not do a great job of making information publicly accessible/available. Currently, it publishes patent applications through its weekly journal, (in both print and electronic formats) containing only bare essentials such as the abstract, title of the invention, convention priority date and applicant details. A copy of the complete specification has to be requested in writing from the Patent Office. Apart from this, the Patent Facilitating Centre (PFC) of TIFAC provides

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CONSTRUCTIVELY ENGAGING WITH THE MASHELKAR COMMITTEE REPORT: A RESPONSE TO DWIJEN RANGNEKAR

Dwijen Rangnekar, a prolific writer in the area of geographical indications (amongst other things), emailed me a copy of his recent article in the EPW (Economic and Political Weekly) dealing with the Mashelkar Committee Report, asking what I thought about it. Reluctant as I am in wasting any more time addressing the personal attacks generated by this report, Dwijen’s article is an exception, since it helpfully engages with the substance of the TRIPS arguments. I’ve been making a call for

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Yahoo! In Hot Pickle

      Yahoo! has been in the midst of a spicy controversy since it launched its Malayalam portal last month. A number of bloggers from Kerala, lead by Ms. Surya Gayathri attacked Yahoo for allegedly plagiarizing content from their blogs. Ms. Surya Gayathri, who had posted her recipe for Erunellika (Gooseberry pickle) on her blog (Kariveppilla – see image) was shocked to find her recipes copied verbatim on the Yahoo portal (For a translation of recipes on the Yahoo

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THE MASHELKAR COMMITTEE REPORT AND “INDUSTRY” CAPTURE ALLEGATIONS

I was greeted this morning by a TOI editorial written by a colleague of mine from Oxford, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, who now teaches at the National Law School, Bangalore. I’ve always respected Sudhir as someone who exuded academic rigour—and was therefore surprised at reading an editorial that rested on superficial analysis and touted fancy terms. Even more surprising was the fact that this came after we had exchanged some communications on this theme in the past. Sudhir had emailed asking for

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The eBay-Rowling imbroglio – PART I

When Shamnad drew my attention to a report on the purported injunction against eBay as granted by an Indian court, I was quite surprised (to put it very mildly)! In India the courts have traditionally taken a stand against ISP liability and if such an injunction had indeed been granted it would diametrically change this position. Yet, despite the news.com report (hyperlinked above) having used fairly cautious language, other media reports on the issue such as times online contain unequivocal

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New Antimalarial Pill: Encouraging R&D for Neglected Diseases

The International Herald Tribune carries this interesting story of a PPP (Public Private Partnership) between Sanofi Aventis and DNdI (Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative) that resulted in a new and useful malaria pill. The news item states: “A new, cheap pill to treat malaria was introduced Thursday, the first product of an innovative partnership between an international drug company and a medical charity. The medicine, called ASAQ, is a pill combining artemisinin, invented in China using sweet wormwood and hailed

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India gives a much awaited nod to the Madrid Protocol

The Indian Cabinet has approved a plan for the country to accede to the Madrid Protocol. If the proposal gets the backing of the Parliament, international trade mark owners will be able to extend their rights to the world’s second most populous country using the Madrid system, and Indian applicants will be able to extend their trade marks overseas. (See the detailed report in MIP) What does this mean for trademark owners in the light of the Trade Marks Act,

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