Patents
Indian Patent Office extends deadline to submit comments on revised Guidelines for Examination of Pharmaceutical Patents
The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (CGPDTM) released a document titled the draft guidelines for examination of Patent applications in the field of pharmaceuticals on February 28, 2014 which was open for comments until March 31, 2014 which was eventually extended…
Indian Patent Office reiterates on biological material deposition before making patent application
In its notification on July 2, 2014, the Indian Patent Office (IPO) forewarns patent applicants the consequences of not depositing a sample of the biological material with an International Depository Authority (IDA). Per the present position of law, a sample of the biological material for which…
IPAB makes the Indian Patent Office see the importance of doing things right the first time
In a spate of orders recently (see here, here and here), the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) has asked the Indian Patent Office (IPO) to consider those matters afresh because the IPO’s orders lacked reasoning. In the matter of India Patent application No.1880/DELNP/2005, the IPO had…
Update: Anti-cancer drug Abraxane refused patent by the IPO
Following my earlier post on this issue, it is now reported that the Indian Patent Office (IPO) has refused patent to the anti-cancer drug, Abraxane. I am yet to obtain a copy of this IPO order. A recap Briefly, the opposition against the patent application for Abraxane was filed by Natco Pharma…
Revocation of patents in India - A Fork in the road
In a country like India where a patent is granted after fighting tooth and nail, “revocation” is arguably the most dreaded term for any patent-holder. A patent granted in India can sought to be revoked for more than one reason and statutorily in more than one forum. Seeking revocation of patents in…
Statement of working for patents and confidentiality
In my earlier post on this matter, I discussed the importance of filing the statement of working for a patent without delving into the aspect of confidentiality or lack thereof when such statements are made. Statutorily, the statement of working may be published by the Patent Office and so the…
Compulsory Licensing in India
We bring you another guest post by Ratnavel Pandian. In this post, Ratnavel discusses the Indian statutory provisions for compulsory licensing and instances of compulsory licensing in India. Introduction Before delving into an appraisal of the compulsory licensing regime in India, it is first…
A Lowdown on the Indo-US Tensions due to India’s Patent Regime
We bring you a guest post by Ratnavel Pandian, a third year student of National University of Juridical Sciences. In this post, he takes us through why the US faces pressure from its lawmakers to take India to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) regarding India's patent regime and the unfairness of…
Justice, naturally.
An order in January this year by the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (“IPAB”) drives home a simple, much re-iterated and often neglected point of law: the right to be heard. Facts of the case Abraxis BioScience LLC (“Abraxis”) had filed a patent application in 2005 for “composition and method…
More facilities through e-filing system for Patents
In yet another upgrade, the Indian Patent office has made available few more facilities through its e-filing system (“system”). In general these changes pertain to requests which do not have a prescribed form in the Patent Rules. Since the increase in official fee for paper filing, it is only…