Celebrating 20 Years of IP Excellence

This image depicts a Blackberry phone. This post discusses why Samsung wants to acquire Blackberry from an IP perspective. Click on the image to read the full post.

What makes Samsung want to buy Blackberry?

The market is rife with the reports of Korean phone-maker Samsung intending to acquire Blackberry for $7.5 billion, in spite of both the companies labelling the reports “groundless”. The speculation sent the Canadian smart-phone maker’s stock soaring 30% before it fell down by 17%. The possibility of the acquisition has raised a very important question- What makes Blackberry so appealing to Samsung? The acquisition would give Samsung the access to Blackberry’s robust patent portfolio that includes 44,000 patents worth over…

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This image depicts a person holding a placard reading GILEAD 1,000 per Pill, Shame. This image is relevant as Gilead had filed for a patent for the same medicine in India for the same price. Click on the image for more information

‘Killead’s Patent Application Killed by the Indian Patent Office!

Gilead Sciences was rejected patent for its blockbuster drug Sofosbuvir, a new Hepatitis C drug by the India Patent Office in a major decision taken on 13 January 2015. The drug is branded under the name Sovaldi. Gilead had priced the drug at US$84,000 for a treatment course, or $1,000 per pill in the US and had received a regulatory approval in US in 2013. The patent application (6087/DELNP/2005) for the drug was opposed by the Indian generic company Natco; Medicines,…

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Roche’s backbone rendered brittle by Indian Patent Office

The Chennai Patent Office revoked Hoffmann-La-Roche’s patent on its osteoporosis drug, Bonviva, in response to post grant opposition filed by Indian drug maker, Cipla Global Ltd. The drug in question comprises Ibandronate Sodium, used to treat patients suffering from metastatic cancer, associated skeletal fractures and osteoporosis and also for the treatment and prevention of osteoporosis in post-menopausal women. Osteoporosis is the progressive bone disease caused by decrease in bone mass making bones extremely weak and fragile, leading to increased risk of…

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Weekly IP Warm-UP!

GOOGLE V. SPAIN – SPANISH PUBLISHERS SUFFER AS GOOGLE NEWS CLOSES OPERATIONS A new Copyright law which has made it mandatory for Google, Yahoo and other news aggregators to pay licensing fee to all news publishers for using their stories or snippets in Google News, results in Google cutting its operations in Spain. However, the regulation allowed publishers to opt in to Google’s index, and prevent Google from paying licensing fee. COPYRIGHT REGULATION TO ALLOW PRIVATE COPYING; TO FACE IRE…

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The image depicts some tablets inside a glass. This image is relevant as Drug Humria was not granted Patent in India. Click on the image for more information

Drug Humira turns Rheumatic for Abbott Biotechnology

The Indian Patent Office on December 31, 2014 set aside its order of granting a Patent to Abbott Biotechnology for its drug, Humira, in light of pre-grant opposition filed by Glenmark Pharmaceuticals. In November, 2003, Abbott had filed a patent application No. 526/DELNP/2005 for its drug named Humira, a formulation of human antibodies for treating Rheumatoid Arthritis. Glenmark filed a pre-grant opposition to this application in September, 2008. Since this was not brought to the notice of the Controller, Patent…

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RPX acquires patents owned by Apple’s Rockstar Consortium for US$ 900M

American patent risk management company, RPX Corp., entered into an agreement to acquire around 4,000 patents owned by Rockstar, a consortium led by Apple Inc. and other firms for US$ 900M. Rockstar was created as a patent holding entity in 2011 by technology bigwigs like Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry, Sony and Ericsson, with the intent of purchasing the 6,000 patents from the Nortel Network Corp., for US$ 4.5B, following its bankruptcy. About 2,000 of the most valuable patents have already been distributed…

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This image depicts Tablets of different colors. This image is relevant as there is a Patent Infringement dispute between Aurobindo Pharma and Astrazeneca. Click on the image for more information.

Astrazeneca to retain Sweetness of Onglyza

Aurobindo Pharma, USA, has been dragged to the Court for patent infringement by Astrazeneca. The suit filed is against the ANDA (Abbreviated New Drug Application) filed by Aurobindo Pharma with the USFDA with regard to seeking the market approval for Saxagliptin hydrochloride tablets before the expiry of its US patent. Aurobindo Pharma plans to market the generic versions of Saxagliptin hydrochloride tablets of 2.5 mg and 5 mg strengths. Astrazeneca is the sole marketer of Saxagliptin hydrochloride tablets having got…

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Patent licensing agreement for Google and Verizon

Google has now entered into a patent cross selling agreement with Verizon after cutting similar deals with Cisco, Samsung and LG, in its pursuit to attain cutting-edge technology and fend off lawsuits. The contract will not give Google and Verizon access to each other’s patents, but will forbid them from filing lawsuits against each other over patent infringements of their existing patents as well as patents obtained by them over the next five years. The agreement will cover a wide…

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This image depicts the Title Intro to patent Law and Patentability Requirement, a PPT Presentation given by Dr. Kalyan Kankanala. Click on the image to view full post

Intro to Patent Law and Patentability Requirements – Presentations by Dr. Kalyan Kankanala at NLSIU

The presentations embedded in this post have been delivered by Dr. Kalyan  Kankanala in his Patent Law course at National Law School of India University, Bangalore. The presentation on Intro to Patent Law gives an overview of patent philosophy. It covers social, economic and utilitarian rationales and gives an introduction to the tragedy of commons dimension. It also covers the patent life cycle, and public interest aspects of patent law. This presentation is an updated version of the 2013 presentation.Continue…

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Featherbed Frame: The Frame That is Revolutionizing Motorcycle Construction

This post was first published on 16th October, 2014. The chassis or the frame is part of a vehicle that is of paramount importance. It is like a skeleton that defines the shape of the vehicle and holds all the associated components of the vehicle together. There are different types of motorcycle frames such as single cradle, half duplex cradle, full duplex cradle, perimeter, beam, trellis etc., Though single cradle or single down-tube cradle frame is the simple and most commonly…

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