Patent Ever-greening has been largely used by the pharmaceutical industry for extending their patent protection. Industries generally use various legal and technological strategies to extend the term. Establishing or partnering with the generic establishment are some external strategies being used by the industries. But the majorly used strategy is the intentional minor modification of the old drugs thereby, obt...Read More

The denial of the market entry often concerns the access to essential and cheaper medicines and in a larger picture, the public health issue. The availability of generic drugs being subjected to any such preceding condition irrespective of any infringement does affect the larger issues of access to medicine. Patent linkage is perhaps one of the most debatable aspects of patent regulation around the world. Various %...Read More

The outbreak of Covid-19 has set the eyes of the world towards finding a suitable vaccine for the virus. Data Exclusivity is the period of non-reliance and non-disclosure that is provided to new chemical entities and pharmaceutical composition. There is a difference between what we understand as Data Protection and Data Exclusivity. Both cannot be used interchangeably. As the name suggests, data exclusivity is %...Read More

The advent of information technology does help the world to get closer to each other. These mutual interconnections have invariably solved various contentious problems that would otherwise be difficult to address. The intellectual property regime is witnessing a constant increase in the pressure of disposing of various applications that have been filed at various domestic offices across the world. The development of Patent Prose...Read More

The exclusive rights that the Intellectual Property Rights provides to an inventor and a creator in consideration for the efforts being taken by them so that they could reap commercial benefits out of their work, substantiates the importance of IP. Giving due importance to the intellectual labor associated with the innovation is what makes the process of innovation a continuous cycle. These ...Read More

US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in the Valeant Pharmaceuticals v. Mylan pharmaceuticals, held that “acts of infringement” in Hatch-Waxman litigation occurs where actions related to the submission of an Abbreviated New Drug Application (“ANDA”) occur, not where the future distribution of a generic product specified in an ANDA is planned....Read More

We all are very clear with the understanding and the importance of early filing date and priority date in the patent application. A patent is granted on the premise that the invention is non-obvious and constitutes inventive steps. These issues are very much interlinked with that of the filing date since an early filing date is acknowledged as prior art. The priority date of a patent relates to the earliest filing date ...Read More

A bilateral patent prosecution highway (PPH) pilot program has been implemented between the Indian patent office (IPO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO) on December 05, 2019, for a period of three years. The guideline was framed by the patent offices and published on the website of Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks. As per the guideline, the number ...Read More

The fourth amendment of the Chinese Patent Law (CPL) has been approved by China's National People's Congress on October 17, 2020, which will take effect on June 01, 2021. After the 2008 amendments, China has approved the current amendments to the CPL. Below is a brief summary of the Top 5 Changes in the newly amended CPL....Read More

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) notified the Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2020 dated October 19th, 2020. The Patent Amendment Rules, 2020 are effective from October 20th, 2020. The existing patent rules 21 and 131 (2) are revised in the present amendments and the revised rules modify the requirement of %...Read More

In view of the UK's exit (Brexit) from the European Union (EU), the transition period will finally end on December 31st,2020 and the UK becomes an independent territory of the EU since January 1st, 2021. The EU Trade Marks and Registered Community Designs have direct impacts due to the end of the transition period. However, the EU patents/patent applications do not have...Read More

Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) in its order, OA/63/2020/PT/DEL dated 27 October 2020, observed that filing of the declaration under Rule 4.17 (ii) of the PCT Regulations during PCT filing satisfies the legal requirement of filing ‘proof of right’ for PCT National phase patent applications in India and set aside the order dated January 30, 2020 ...Read More

Geographical Indication (GI) is an Intellectual Property Right like any other IPR which is described in Article 22 of TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) Agreement as “indications which identify a good as originating in the territory of a Member, or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristics of the good is essentially attrib...Read More

The PCT patent application or International patent application generally has two phases, 1) International Phase and 2) National Phase. The PCT patent application has to be nationalized in specific countries before the expiration of the international phase. The ...Read More

The international (PCT) patent application plays the role of an international patent application for a certain period of time or until national phase entry in each of the national countries. The PCT patent application does not result in a grant of a patent, however, the applicant or inventor can prosecute the PCT patent application with the International search authority (ISA) and/or International Prelimin...Read More