The Ministry of Commerce and Industry, under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, has introduced draft amendments to the Patents Rules, 2003. These drafts detail various changes proposed by the Central Government, anchored on section 159 of the Patents Act, 1970. The government seeks to amend the …
Order of the High Court of Delhi on infringement of copyright, rendition of accounts of profits, damages, cost and delivery up of infringing goods dated 13/09/2013.
Judgement of the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Commissioner of Central Excise, Thane-II Vs M/s. Time Pharma, Mumbai dated 14/08/2013 regarding pharmaceutical products for the purposes of Central Excise tariff.
This is the first judgement citing Section 3(j) that says plants & animals aren’t patentable India’s patent appeals board has denied Monsanto a patent for a genetically-engineered method of increasing climate resilience in plants. The decision is significant not only for Monsanto’s loss of possible exclusivity in an increasingly important …
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the United States India Business Council are miffed over the recent Novartis judgment of the Supreme Court (SC) of India. For us, however, this ruling on the question of the patentability of the beta crystalline form of Imatinib Mesylate (IM) is one …
Supreme Court judgement dated 01-04-2013:in Appeal Civil No. 2706-2716/2013 @ SLP(C) 20539-20549/2009 Novartis AG Vs. Union of India and ors (Patent/Cancer Drug).
Tiered pricing - the concept of selling drugs and vaccines in developing countries at prices systematically lower than in industrialized countries - has received widespread support from industry, policymakers, civil society, and academics as a way to improve access to medicines for the poor. We carried out case studies based …
In August and September 2006, patients with cancer, lawyers for patient advocacy groups, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) converged on the offices of Novartis in Mumbai, India, to protest the company's efforts to obtain an Indian patent on Gleevec, the company's brand-name version of imatinib mesylate. Gleevec (spelled Glivec …
The Supreme Court will pronounce on Monday its verdict in a landmark patent case involving Swiss pharma giant Novartis AG. The company has challenged the denial of patent to its blood cancer drug Glivec in India The verdict, which is crucial even for public health, is being watched closely by …
Vernon Hugh Bowman, a 75-year old Indiana farmer, says that switching to Monsanto Inc.'s "Roundup Ready" soybeans "made things so much simpler and better." Monsanto's patented beans can survive when they are sprayed with the herbicide glyphosate, also known as Roundup, which makes pest control much easier. Monsanto is less …
A technology called a ‘terminator’ was never going to curry much favour with the public. But even Monsanto, the agricultural biotechnology giant in St Louis, Missouri, was surprised by the furore that followed when it patented a method for engineering transgenic crops to produce sterile seed, forcing farmers to buy …
A freewheeling and almost entirely one-sided argument at the Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated that the justices would not allow Monsanto’s patents for genetically altered soybeans to be threatened by an Indiana farmer who used them without paying the company a fee. Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready soybeans are resistant to …
There is something that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has in common with US diplomats—or at least the intellectual property (IP) attachés posted at various diplomatic missions: a dislike of NGOs. Both, the leader of the world’s most populous democracy and the diplomats of the most powerful democracy, make no bones …
Why don't you sell it for Rs.5? Rs.1.2 lakh per month is too high." On September 11, Supreme Court Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Desai posed that question to Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG, fighting to patent its expensive cancer drug Glivec. The question wasn't just judicial speculation or indeed wit. …
Biopiracy is a compound word consisting of ‘bio’ which is a short form for ‘biology’ and ‘piracy’. Biopirates are those individuals and industries/companies accused of one or both of the following acts: (i) the theft, misappropriation of, or unfair free-riding on, genetic resources and/or traditional knowledge, and (ii) the unauthorized …
Health is a crucially important social and economic asset - a cornerstone for human development. Three of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) call for specific health improvements by 2015: reducing the child and maternal mortality and slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
A patent on a process for making storage - stable edible food materials from kernels of gorgon nuts or fox nut (Euryale ferox) has tremendous impact on biodiversity resulting in triggered mass culture and commercialization of this aquatic macrophyte. Besides ecological impact, it has social and economic impacts too. This …
Trade secrets protection has acquired increased significance in the present scenario especially in view of the opening up of the world market and enhanced competition worldwide. Moreover, the fact that trade secret protection is increasingly being preferred over patent protection as a method for protecting undisclosed information has added to …
As India plays host to the Convention on Biological Diversity's 11th Conference of the Parties in Hyderabad in October 2012, this article takes a closer look at the country's legislation on the subject - the Biological Diversity Act (2002).
Open source drug discovery offers potential for developing new and inexpensive drugs to combat diseases that disproportionally affect the poor. The concept borrows two principle aspects from open source computing (i.e., collaboration and open access) and applies them to pharmaceutical innovation. By opening a project to external contributors, its research …
