In an attempt to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Thailand, the Thai government decided to bypass the patents on anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) by issuing compulsory licenses to manufacture generic copies of these drugs. The result of this gutsy move is affordable, locally-made alternatives that are dispensed to patients for free via the government’s universal healthcare […]
A Swiss pharmaceutical company, Novartis, sought to have the January 2006 decision to reject its patent application for the cancer drug imatinib mesylate (Gleevec) reversed by the Chennai High Court in India. Gleevec is used in the treatment of Leukemia. Novartis sells Gleevec at $2500 per patient per month in India; generic versions cost $175 […]
In May of 2007 scientists at J. Craig Venter Institute filed a U.S. patent application on the world’s first synthetic living organism (U.S. Patent application number 20070122826). The patent application claims include a set of essential genes required to provide the bare essentials of life as well as a “free-living organism that can grow and […]
In January 2006, the Patent Office of Chennai rejected the patent application by Novartis for patent of the drug Gleevec (chemically known as imatinib mesylate). Since then till date, the Novartis saga has prompted numerous headlines and scores of commentaries. What is so unique about the entire controversy? After all, aren’t patent applications rejected by […]
India, which followed the approach of process patenting to pharmaceuticals switched over to product patenting by way of an amendment in 2005 in order to be in consonance with the TRIPs agreement. However, India also used the flexibility offered by the WTO rules, which while setting a minimum standard for patent protection, restrained from defining […]
I agree that the “predator” patent trolls can be potential lethal to companies who make and sell products, but I do not agree that their function is futile or unethical. The strongest argument against patent trolls is that they have not contributed to the inventions on which they claim patent infringement. They have, however, usually […]
I recently discovered that my bank (which will remain anonymous) had been charging me four times as much interest as per our agreement for upwards of a year. Eventually all the money I had erroneously forked out was returned to me, but I was forced to bring the matter to their attention on more than […]