Celebrating 20 Years of IP Excellence

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Restricting ‘Pay-for-Delay’ Agreements

This post was first published on 6th August, 2014. A total of more than 420 million Euros was imposed recently as fine by the European Competition Commission on five major Pharma companies for entering into ‘Pay-for-delay’ agreements with Generic companies. These fines and related measures were imposed to restrict the drug majors from entering into these non-competitive kind of deals to maximize their commercial gains. Of the five, the drug maker, Servier has been fined 331 million Euros for the anti-hypertensive…

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Wacky Patents 4 – Mode-Enhanced Hindustani Music

This post was first published on 19th December, 2014. It’s a musical world. From the pitter patter of raindrops to pulsating headaches, there is music everywhere. In many languages, voice modulation and tone become part of communication. Ever wondered if a method of creating music could be patented? Well, that’s exactly what Wacky Patent 4, Mode enhanced Hindustani Music is about. US Patent Application No. 10/082,777 filed in February, 2002 by two inventors of Indian Origin, Prabhakar Prahlad Jamkhedkar and Prashant Prabhakar Jamkhedkar, was granted…

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The image is of a classroom with students. The post is about copyright over notes. Click on image to view post.

Section 3(ka): A Decision on a Patent Application Related to Mathematical Methods

This post was first published on Aug 6th, 2013.   The IPAB (Intellectual Property Apellate Board) issued an order regarding patentability of a patent application which claimed a specific application of a mathematical method. 3624/DELNP/2005 was filed as a National Phase application by Electronic Navigation Research Institute, Japan at the Delhi Patent Office in August 17, 2005 . The patent application relates to a system for analyzing a time series signal by a method based on Chaos Theory and calculating…

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Inventive Step of an Invention Analysed

This post was first published on 16th July, 2014. We will today discuss a case in the Indian Patent history that showcases how the IPAB and the IPO analyse the Inventive Step or Obviousness of an invention. Green Cross Holdings (Appellant) v/s Controller of Patents and Deputy Controller of Patents (Respondents) Case: This judgment, passed on June 18th,  2014 by the IPAB, was based on an appeal made by Green Cross Holdings against the order made by Deputy Controller of Patents on…

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This image depicts compilation of source code of a program. This image is relevant as the post is about Intellectual property protection for programs. Click on the image for more information

Intellectual Property Protection for Computer Programs – Part IV

This post was first published on 15th October, 2014.   In the final post of this series, we shall be looking into the concept of software patents and examining the extent to which patent law is effective in protecting computer programs. As mentioned earlier, protection of computer programs under the Copyright Law is limited to the protection of the literal elements of a computer program, i.e., the source code and the object code, and does not extend to the underlying idea and…

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Patentability of Laws of Nature

This post was first published on 2nd September, 2014.   Today we will discuss a case where a patent was rejected based on the patent ineligible subject matter. Mayo Collaborative Services (Appellants) and Prometheus Laboratories (Respondents) Patents in Dispute: US 6,355,623 and US 6,680,302 Case: Prometheus had an exclusive license over these patents and Mayo was using diagnostic kits based on these patents from Prometheus until 2004 after which Mayo developed its own diagnostic tests for the same purpose. Prometheus sued Mayo for infringement at the…

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This image depicts Philo Fransworth with a Television of the medieval era. This image is relevant as the post is about patent of the Idiot Box. Click on this image for more information

Father of the Electronic Idiot Box

This post was first published on 2nd September, 2014.   Mr. Fransworth is regarded as the Father of Television. I would rename him as Father of Electronic Television, as most of us, including me, have learned in our school days that Mr. John Logie Baird is the Father of Television. The truth is Mr. Baird’s television was based on electro-mechanical systems, whereas Mr. Fransworth’s television was electronic. Mr. Fransworth showed glimpses of his brilliance since childhood by describing and diagramming a television in 1921, when…

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Post-dating Patent Applications

This post was first published on 15th July, 2014.   A provisional patent application is usually filed with a singular purpose - To gain the first (earliest) filing date or to gain priority for the application. As we are aware, gaining priority or an earlier filing date is imperative to the patent grant process. Why then, do we find so many of us opting to post-date their provisional application before filing a complete specification? Post-dating refers to the shift in the Priority date of an…

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This image depicts a Court Hammer being kept above a Computer Keyboard.This image is relevant as the post is about Alice vs. CLS Saga. Click on the image for more information

Alice vs. CLS saga

This post was first published on 19th September, 2014.   A thought is emerging in the US that the Alice vs. CLS decision was a game-changer and that software patent protection in the country has been seriously eroded. Let us see what happened between them and how it affects us. Who is Alice? Alice Corporation claims to be an innovator in financial markets. The Company has obtained patents on its innovations worldwide, including in the United States. It was founded by privately-held…

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Prosecution History E’stop’pel!

This post was first published on 3rd September, 2014.   All of us have experienced times when things don’t work the way we want them to when we really need them to. Exactly the same way, extended protection given to the patentee under the Doctrine of Equivalents (DOE) doesn’t always help you when you need it the most. Many a time, the application has to be amended in order to accommodate the Patent Law requirements, which is called the Prosecution History or File-Wrapper.…

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