Hello Readers!! There has been a lot that has been brewing over the past few weeks with respect to Patents. We have decided to recapitulate the patent news which have recently hit the headlines in our segment, Weekly Trends. Let us take a quick look at what happened in the past weeks, with this weekly update.
Dyson is coming to India!
Dyson Ltd. a well-established UK-based Technology company will be entering India with its wide range of patented products next year and has already applied for a business license. Dyson has decided to partner with leading retailers to sell its products and open stores in major cities, including New Delhi and Mumbai.Sir James Dyson, the billionaire British engineer and entrepreneur who is famous for inventing the cyclonic bagless vacuum cleaner, has recently stated the following- “Dyson intends to make its patented technology available in India for the first time, and build a strong partnership with India which goes beyond our products. India is a very practical, resourceful and inventive nation: these are talents and attitudes that I value above all others.”
Dyson has also planned to help and contribute to India’s every growing engineering community through The James Dyson Foundation – a charity foundation.
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Xtandi – Faced with rejection
Xtandi, a blockbuster wonder drug used in prostate cancer has been the topic of discussion for a while now. A group of US based institutions including KEI (Knowledge Ecology International) have been meticulously trying to make NIH (National Institutes of Health) to use its rights to override the patent on Astellas and Medivation’s pricey prostate cancer pill Xtandi. Speaking about overpriced medication, currently,Xtandi is sold in India at an exorbitant price of 3.35 lakh per month, translating to roughly Rs.11,000 per day.The drug which nets nearly $3 billion in worldwide sales, was acquired by Pfizer Inc as part of a deal when it bought Medivation, a biotech company. Medivation and Astellas jointly market Xtandi.
A patent application for Xtandi was made in 2007 in the Delhi Patent Office. The patent was rejected on the grounds that it lacked requirements of inventive step under section 2(1) (ja) and also it was not patentable under section 3(d) and 3(e) of the Patents Act, 1970. The Patent Office’s decision to reject the patent is likely to play a crucial role in drastically bringing down the cost of the drug, making the drug widely available to the public.
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Vivo and OPPO in a fix
The two Chinese mobile phone companies, Vivo and OPPO, were dragged to court by Dolby alleging licensing violations. The Delhi High Court has asked Vivo and OPPO to deposit royalty on every product manufactured, sold and imported to India, while they negotiate the terms of licensing. Vivo and OPPO have also amicably agreed to negotiate Fair, Reasonable and Non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms with Dolby. The two companies can continue to manufacture and import their smartphones, but they have been ordered by the Delhi High Court to “furnish to the plaintiffs at the end of each month by the 5th day of the succeeding month the particulars of manufacture, sale and import of the devices using the subject technology; and, “depositing in this court by the 8th day of the succeeding month the royalty which may be so becoming due to the plaintiffs at the rate of Rs 34 per unit”.
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Authored By- Srividya Viswanathan.
Image Source/ Attribution here, Governed BY Creative Commons License CC BY -SA 3.0.
