Tag: Pharmaceuticals

Inventions that fall within, or overlap with, disclosures in the prior art are called “selection inventions”. Generally, selection inventions involve the selection of one or more specific embodiments, such as individual elements, subsets, or sub-ranges, within a larger known set or range disclosed in the prior art. This raises critical questions around how the novelty and inventive step of selection patents should be judged. ......

Licensing and franchising intellectual property (IP) offer strategic competitive advantages to a brand. Franchising is a situation where a franchisor controls and supervises the exploitation of a trademark while allowing the use of the tradename, the get up and the reputation and goodwill associated with the trademark. ......

Applying for a patent is a race against time to secure the earliest priority date (i.e., the date of the first filing of a patent application). As a result, patent applications are often filed with accompanying data that do not always capture all the facets of the invention. In such cases, using post-filing data to support the applications is often the only course available. ......

In patent law, there is a constant tug of war between the importance of incentivizing innovators and the need to ensure that consumers have access to innovations. The law reflects this tussle as well. But this constant striving to balance the rights between patentees and consumers is essential for the patent system to function and be meaningful to society. ......

Indian patent law has a unique requirement under which every patentee and licensee of a granted patent must file a statement detailing the commercial working of patented inventions in India. The recent overhaul of the information required to be submitted under patent working statements (contained in Form 27) invites a reconsideration of the law around non-working of patents. ......

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed some unusual problems for states and markets all over the world. While medical science and pharmaceutical professionals continue their search for the best drug or vaccine solution for the pandemic, one challenge lies in how this can be equitably distributed to the global population without compromising on various interests. ......

Today, as the global scientific and research community doubles down on finding a potential drug or vaccine against the novel Coronavirus, the obvious question that arises is of access to affordable drugs and medical equipment. With the high investment required in drug discovery and pharmaceutical research generally, the debate naturally turns to the returns on such investment in times of a public health crisis as the one being faced today. This note seeks to understand if intellectual property (IP) protection will be a barrier to affordable drugs....

The total cost for bringing a new prescription drug to market is about USD 2 to 3 billion (DiMasi et al.). A significant portion of this cost is incurred in conducting clinical trials. The global clinical trials market size is expected to reach USD 69.8 billion by 2027, exhibiting a 5.1% compound annual growth rate (‘CAGR’) during the forecast period. ...

In a world where science and technology evolve at an exponential pace, it is essential that the institutional systems that support the evolution of these industries also keep up with the pace. But the Indian patenting system has been often criticized over the years for its slow and long drawn out processing time. This processing pace naturally affects the quality and quantity of applications as well, and it is possible that foreign innovators or entities may be losing interest in filing for patents in India for this reason....