7th March , 2010

Process patent for IIT Madras and Madras Institute of Nephrology

A new process patent has been granted to IIT, Madras and Madras Institute of Nephrology (MIN) for a life saving drug used in dialysis patients with chronic kidney disease.

A successful teamwork between Dr Rajan Ravichandran, the present Director, MIN and an organic chemist and professor S Sankararaman from IIT Madras resulted in the development of a process for the synthesis of a polymeric phosphate binder and several softer derivatives of the organic phosphate binder. These phosphate binders are essential in the treatment of dialysis patients with chronic kidney disease.

The excess phosphate (hyperphosphatemia) build up in serum of such patients has to be removed to avoid problems like blockage of blood vessels due to build up of calcium phosphate plaque. Usually metal salts such as calcium carbonate and aluminium hydroxide were used for the treatment.

Two patents were filed in India jointly by IIT, Madras and MIN on these new developments in 2006 and one patent was granted recently.

Bayer’s plea to stay Cipla’s cancer clone rejected
           
The Supreme Court (SC) of India has turned down a request by the German drugmaker Bayer to stop Mumbai-based Cipla from launching the low-cost version of Bayer’s Nexavar – the patented cancer medicine. This case has global significance for drugmakers as it will decide whether the Indian drug regulator would give the marketing approval of a patented drug.

A Delhi High Court had dismissed Bayer’s attempt to introduce patent linkage in India. Now Bayer has filed a special leave petition challenging the court’s order. The SC issued notices only and declined to grant any interim order as sought by Bayer to stop Cipla from launching its drug until the court decides the case.

According to Indian patent law, the patentee gets exclusive marketing rights for 20 years with no competition from generic low-cost companies. Bayer had challenged that since it holds the patent for Nexavar, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) cannot give marketing approval for Cipla’s generic version. Such a provision is known as patent linkage which many global pharma companies are trying to introduce in India.

Patent linkage would delay the launch of low-cost drugs and affect public health. The Delhi High Court in had rejected the Bayer’s appeal citing that DCGI powers and jurisdiction are confined by the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940, and not by the Patents Act and its task is limited to examining the efficiency and safety of a drug. Cipla is in the process of launching the generic version of Nexavar at less than half the price of Bayer’s version which costs Rs 2.85 lakh for a monthly dose of 120 tablets. However Cipla’s application to launch the drug is pending with the DCGI.

PETCO in trademark dispute

Unleashed Dog Center, a shop offering dog products and grooming in Boulder County is fighting for the rights to use the similar concepts, color schemes and names they share with PETCO, the pet supply business giant.

PETCO is entering the boutique pet supply market with a follow-up store, Unleashed. At present there are three such stores in California.

Bernadette, and her husband, Joe Pflug who own the Unleashed Dog Center claim that PETCO store's color scheme, look, natural pet food concept and name have been lifted from their small store. The Pflugs filed a notice of opposition with federal trademark regulators contesting PETCO's national trademark citing too many coincidences.

The Pflugs may not lose their rights to the ‘Unleashed’ trademark in the Boulder area, because of their well-established use of the mark for several years. But they require a federal trademark with the USPTO, without which PETCO will gain a ruling that would allow it to open its own stores with the ‘Unleashed’ trademark somewhere else in Colorado.

Google Awarded Location Patent

Google the world’s largest search engine and the owner of the world’s largest online advertising platform has been awarded a patent related to using location information in an advertising system by the USPTO. The patent covers location for targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an advertisement. This patent which was filed nearly seven years ago, in September 2003, sets the platform for Google’s plan for mobile advertising. 

The location information used to target and score ads may include or define an area. The area may be defined by at least one geographic reference point or location (e.g., defined by latitude and longitude coordinates) and possibly additional information. Thus, the area may be a circle defined by a geographic reference point and a radius, an ellipse defined by two geographic reference points and a distance sum, or a polygon defined by three or more geographic reference points. The patent was filed over six years ago.

Panasonic, Victor and Funai Electric in patent lawsuit

Freescale Semiconductor, an Austin-based chipmaker has filed lawsuits against three major Japanese electronics makers accusing them of using its intellectual property without a license.

The chipmaker named Panasonic Corp., Victor Co. of Japan Ltd. (JVC) and Funai Electric Co. Ltd. In the suit filed in the U.S. District Court in Austin and in a lawsuit filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission, Freescale seeks to bar the import of their products to the United States.

The lawsuit filed with the trade commission seeks to bar the Japanese companies from importing products such as television sets, memory cards, video cameras, digital cameras and media players, such as Blu-ray DVD players.

Freescale said that Panasonic had been a licensee of its technology until 2007, when it did not renew its license agreement.

Facebook has been awarded a patent for the technology that supports streaming of social network news feeds by the USPTO. The U.S Patent No. 7,669,123 titled “Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network” was filed in Aug 2006 by Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg heads the list of inventors.

The patent relates to methods including generating news items about activities of a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items. The 16-page patent explains how Facebook presents the status updates, links and more. Going by Facebook’s own numbers, that’s 60 million status updates per day posted by 35 million users.

The patent would allow Facebook to take legal action against its competitors Google, MySpace and Twitter – which all use news feeds – to protect its patent, if they are in anyway infringing on its technology. The company could pressurize its rivals to stop using the technology or to buy a license from Facebook to continue using it.

Patent applications from Gulf States rise 16.66%

International patent filings by Gulf countries under the World Intellectual Property Organisation's (WIPO) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) rose 16.66 per cent in spite of disturbed economic conditions, according to WIPO. However, global patent filings fell 4.5 per cent to 155,900 in 2009 compared to 164,000 applications filed in 2008.
 
The total filings from the Gulf countries were 105 last year compared to 90 in 2008. Saudi Arabia had the most number of patent filings with 69 applications followed by the UAE with 32, while the other Gulf countries had one each in 2009.

Protection of an invention can be sought concurrently in a large number of countries by filing one international patent application under the PCT.

The United States topped the list with 45,790 applications, followed by Japan with 29,827, Germany with 16,736, the Republic of Korea with 8,066 and China with 7,946 applications. In 2009 only 761 international applications were filed by India.

Bayer and Novartis settle patent dispute over Hemophilia drug

Bayer the Germany’s drugmaker has settled a lawsuit brought by Novartis and Novo Nordisk that claimed Bayer infringed a patent related to treatment of hemophilia.

In a lawsuit filed in 2008, Novartis and Novo Nordisk had claimed that Bayer’s Kogenate infringes their patent and sought monetary compensation.

Hemophilia is a bleeding disorder which results from the absence of a so-called clotting factor, called Factor VIII, in the patients’ blood. People with hemophilia tend to bleed continuously and they often have to take injections of clotting factors to check the blood loss.