Celebrating 20 Years of IP Excellence

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Adding Salt Water to Fire Automobiles

First Publication Date: 12th January 2011 This is in furtherance to the post, titled “Driving on Hydrogen”,  on using Hydrogen as a fuel in automobiles. Recently I happened to  come across a video on YouTube titled “Salt water into Fuel”,  which they have mentioned as an accidental invention. I was quite  excited to see this and went in search of more details of this  invention. I found out that the story goes like this. John Kanzius of  Sanibel, Florida was…

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Patent Damages: How Much is Too Much?

First Publication Date: 6th January 2011   When the US sneezes, the world catches cold!   This statement holds absolutely true for debates over patent infringement damages. It has been just two days that United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) pronounced the judgment in the much hyped Uniloc v. Microsoft case and the world is already drooling over the reincarnated debate. The facts, in a nutshell, involve Uniloc suing Microsoft over infringement of their patent related to software…

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Non-obviousness of Biotech Inventions in USA

First Publication Date: 26th December 2010. The Non-obviousness standards required for biotechnology inventions have been interpreted by courts to be different from the generally accepted principles. In Hybritech v. Monoclonal , a case involving a patent over "Immunometric Assays Using Monoclonal Antibodies", the court held the patent non-obvious despite the existence of twenty prior art references because the prior art as a whole did not make the invention obvious at the time the invention was made. Though some references seemed to…

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Rejection of Application Based on Pre-Grant Representation May Be Appealed to IPAB

First Publication Date: 10th February 2010 In a decision delivered on February 8th, 2010, the Delhi High Court held that an applicant aggrieved by the rejection of his application by the Controller based on a pre-grant representation may file an appeal to the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). The court delivered the decision after consolidating writ petitions filed by UCB FARCHIM, COLORCON, YEDA RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT and ELI LILLY. As per the Court, a rejection by the Controller based on…

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Characters are pulling a rope written PATENT on top as this article is about Indian Patent Law Basics

Is a Method of Massaging Patentable subject matter?

First Publication Date: 12th January 2010 This post is in furtherance of a question posed by one of my students at NLSIU. The question was - "Can a method of massaging be patentable in India?". He apparently saw a massage centre stating that they have patented their massage methods. In my opinion, a process of performing a massage that is not related to treatment of a disease or disorder is patentable in India provided it satisfies the industrial applicability,…

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The image depicts the cover of the presentation with title of Trade Secrets and Biotechnology by Dr. Kalyan C Kankanala

Small Business Innovative Research Initiative (SBIRI) Scheme from Department of Biotechnology

First Publication Date: 24th December 2009. Department of Biotechnology has introduced a scheme to fund projects of small business innovative research Initiative. The scheme has become immensely popular as almost 56 Successful SBIRI applicants are listed for the scheme as on 26/11/2009. The aim of the scheme is to encourage small and medium scale industries to take up risk in innovative R&D in biotech sector. The intellectual property generated from the Project shall be the joint property of the Industry…

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The image depicts the Schema for Patent and Public Domain Balance.

Patent and Public Domain Balance – 1

First Publication Date: 1st December 2009   Patent Law is believed to promote the progress of science and technology by providing exclusive rights to inventors for a limited period of time. It operates on the principle of 'Quid Pro Quo' or 'Give and take'. An inventor gives an invention to the public and takes exclusive rights over it for a limited period of time.The grant of exclusive rights is believed to provide incentives to invent, invest, design around and disclose. Possibilities of…

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The image depicts a picture of a dna as the post is about life of a gene patent in India.

Life of a Gene in India

First Publication Date: 3rd November 2009   Last weekend, at a training session in Hyderabad, I was once again confronted by the ever sizzling issue of Indian Patent Office's stand with regard to patenting of Gene Sequences. The outcome of that heated argument is this post of mine. Prior to signing the TRIPS, any invention even remotely linked with living organism (including micro organisms) was not patentable subject matter in India. Article 27 (3) of TRIPS required its signatory to allow patents for…

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The image depicts the WIPO headquarters in Geneva as the post is about Paris Convention for the protection of industrial property with respect to patents.Click here to read.

Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, 1883 (Revised at Stockholm in 1967)

First Publication Date: 7th January 2008 Monopoly and related rights have always been frowned upon by the law. The Statute of Monopolies, enacted in England in the year 1623, established that monopolies are not acceptable in law, but made a glorious exception in favour of patentable inventions. Therefore, although the statute prohibited monopolies, it specifically preserved the right of the royalty to grant patents for inventions by manufacturers. In pursuance of this individual government backed incentive mechanisms that prevailed in different parts…

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The Amazing Race: US and India Patent Statistics

The Amazing Race: US and India Patent Statistics

Half the year is gone, and we, as usual, were curious to find out who are all in the race to top the patent charts this year. We found an article that gives a comprehensive view of the US patent statistics and list of top contenders (in terms of number of granted patents and published patents). So, we performed a search to identify details of patent activity of the top 10 in the lists provided by Sqoop. The search methodology…

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