BananaIP Counsels has been following the recent developments in Trademarks, Patents, Copyrights, and Designs cases. This monthly roundup provides some insight into the developments made in these cases by various High Courts in India. The month of March saw an interesting mix of intellectual property decisions from courts in India. This post brings to you a list of important decisions relating to Trademarks, Copyrights, Patents, Consumer Protection and Accessibility Laws. We hope that this information helps our readers stay informed…
Original Date of Publication: 17th May, 2010
A patent search, in simple words, is an exercise of mining granted patents and published patent applications (patent documents) that are related to a subject matter of our interest. A patent search helps in making decisions under various scenarios. It helps determine, patentability of a subject matter, freedom to operate and validity of a patent, among others.
More often than not, a patent search is conducted to determine patentability of a subject matter for which…
First Publication Date: 22nd December 2010
The other day, while I was having a heated discussion with 2 fellow bloggers about the patentability of repurposed drugs i.e. patenting of new use of a known drug, we hit a road block with regard to patent value of an intermediate. The question raised was "Will a newly found first use of an already known intermediate be patentable in India?"
I am rephrasing the question for the purpose of this discussion.
“Will the exclusion criterion elaborated…
First Publication Date: 19th December 2010.
Since inception patent law is being customized and fine tuned by governments to meet the needs of evolving technologies. Strong basic principles have evolved to cater to the needs of traditional fields of science and technology and they have been working well in promoting progress. However, the basic principles have utterly failed in a number of ways, when it comes to their application to Modern Biotechnology. The unique nature of Modern Biotechnology is the main…
First Publication Date: 2nd October 2010
The patent system has played a critical role in promoting the progress of science and technology since its inception by providing incentives to invent, to disclose, to design around and to invest. These incentives encourage the progress of science and technology in turn contributing to the economic development and prosperity of mankind. Though the patent system has played a critical role in the progress of science generally, its benefits have not been extended to medical…
First Publication Date: 1st October 2010
Introduction
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the American constitution gives congress the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. In furtherance of the power granted to it by the constitution, the congress has enacted the Patent Law, which has been codified under Title 35 of the United States Code.…
First Publication Date: 29th June 2010
The much awaited Bilski decision has been pronounced by the US Supreme Court (Bilski v. Kappos). This closely watched and highly discussed case revolves around patentability of Bilski's hedging of risks business method invention. From the day when the patent examiner rejected Bilski's claims calling them 'mere manipulation of an abstract idea' the controversy has given rise to a lot of potent questions including the likes of patentability of software and business methods and restrictions…
First Publication Date: 9th June 2010
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has recently incorporated materials on yoga to the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL). The materials include data on various yoga postures and videos relating to them. The information on yoga has been collected by CSIR from ancient Indian texts such as Patanjali. As per Dr. Gupta from CSIR, the addition of the materials to TKDL will play an important role in preventing patent grants relating to yoga…
This post was first published on April 4, 2010.
This is in furtherance of Mrs. Vinita Radhakrishnan's post regarding the US District Court decision on BRCA gene patents.
Under the US Patent Law, anything that exists in nature is not patentable subject matter. This is also referred to as 'Product of Nature Doctrine'. The test for determining whether something exists in nature or not as laid down in Chakrabarty's case is whether a hand of man is involved in creating…
First Publication Date: 14th January 2010
Most of us, when we think about patents, we tend to associate patents with “high-tech” technological innovations. However, truth be told, sometimes patent protection can be easily extended to protect, as many may call, not so high-tech innovations as well.
We had blogged earlier about, whether inventions related to method of massaging can be patented. A comment made on that blog post raises an interesting question, and is the focal point of this post.
The question is:…