Patents Archives

Patent Troll in India?

First Publication Date: 10th June 2010 NTP has filed a patent infringement suit in a US District Court against Apple, Google, Microsoft, Motorola, HTC and LG. It alleged in the suit that the companies are liable for infringing eight of its patents relating to sending emails over wireless networks. This suit is significant because of two reasons: a. NTP is a patent troll, whose business model revolves around acquiring patents and licensing or enforcing them. It does not have…

December 2, 2018 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 1205Views 0Like

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This image depicts a heard of cows. This post discusses the patents that have been filed for the composition of cow urine and its uses. Click on the image to read the full post.

Another Patent Granted Over Medicinal Value of Cow’s Urine

First Publication Date: 24th June 2010. A patent was granted to CSIR with respect to a composition useful for protecting and/or repairing DNA from oxidative damages. The value of cow's urine has been emphasized in ancient Indian texts including the rig veda. Cow's urine is known to not only have medicinal value but is also used to purify ayurvedic medicines. The patent granted to CSIR claims a composition for preventing and repairing damage to DNA due to oxidation. The patent…

December 1, 2018 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Patents, Traditional Knowledge 2Comments 1626Views 0Like

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This image depicts a person in a yoga asana. His body has been divided into the traditional four zones targetted by yoga healing. This post explores if the way of performing yoga may be patented. Click on the image to read the full post.

Can a Method of Performing Yoga be Patented?

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…

November 30, 2018 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 1673Views 0Like

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IP in Everyday Life – Godrej Tribolt

First Publication Date: 27th May 2010 I noticed this Godrej Tribolt lock (which can be seen below) carrying prominent notices about the Intellectual Property related to it (seen below) The above notice is an example of a good patent notice, in that it complies with S.111(1) of the Indian Patent Act, 1970, which reads as In a suit for infringement of a patent, damages or an account of profits shall not be granted against the defendant who proves that at the date of the…

November 29, 2018 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 1022Views 0Like

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IP in Everyday Life – Aircraft Seat Belts

First Publication Date: 7th June 2010 Most of us fly frequently. But, we might not have paid attention to the most vital piece of safety equipment for a passenger; the seat belt. If you flip the receptacle portion of the belt, you will see a notice which states "Patent 5088160". The referred patent is assigned to Am-safe, Inc and was filed on February 5, 1990 (and has subsequently expired on February 5, 2010). The two independent claims are as follows: Claim 1: A webbing…

November 29, 2018 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 827Views 0Like

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Synthetic cell: Patent or No Patent?

First Publication Date: 27th May 2010. After reading today’s article titled “Patent-run for synthetic life form could be ‘damaging’, says Brit scientist” I thought I was having a Déjà vu. Looks like, once again, history repeats itself. Have you ever wondered as to why every time there is substantial progress in the field of Synthetic biology, we get mixed reactions? We are happy about the progress but when it comes to rewarding a patent to the inventors for the progress,…

November 28, 2018 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 734Views 0Like

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Natural or Man Made

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…

November 27, 2018 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 781Views 0Like

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The Gene Returns to its Body

This post was first published on April 1, 2010. I’m still in denial of the summary judgment ruling provided by Judge Robert W. Sweet of United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Association for Molecular Pathology v. USPTO on March 29th 2010. Looks like all that I read, understood and was convinced that gene patents demands a revisit. The 156 pages summary judgment that was issued on this Monday has for sure taken me by surprise.…

November 27, 2018 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 886Views 0Like

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Claiming with a Purpose, with the Blessings of the Inventor

This post was first published on March 1, 2010. Claims draw the boundary to the invention that is being claimed. The boundary that is being drawn must be carefully done in order to ensure that the claims serve their purpose. The point here is that every claim must have a specific purpose and must be targeted to a potentially infringing product or process, or be targeted to protect a specific implementation (in case of defensive approach). In order for the practitioner…

November 27, 2018 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 721Views 0Like

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Something More About Swiss Type Claims

This post was first published on February 25, 2010. On reading Siddharth’s post on the 19th February decision (G02/08) from the Enlarged Board of Appeal regarding the Swiss type claims, I got motivated to write something about the Swiss type claims and the reason for its birth and death. Like in India, Method of Treatment and Method of diagnosis (in vivo) has always been non patentable subject matter in Europe (Article 52(4)). Furthermore, before the concept of Absolute Novelty was introduced by…