PATENT
NEW STANDARD FOR MNC DRUG PRICES
Government of India is going to finalize norms for monitoring prices of costly imported patented medicines for diseases such as diabetes, arthritis, obesity, cancer and heart diseases. Since there are no means of verifying production cost, keeping a check on prices of imported medicines are difficult though they come under price control. Prices of imported for identified diseases will be negotiated on the basis of the same medicine in other markets and the cost of production estimated by it under the new norms. “The move will ensure that essential medicines remain affordable in the country," a government official said.
This move would be beneficial to the consumers as big pharma companies introduce their patented medicines in the country at high prices and with a 20-year patent protection resulting in monopoly pricing. The proposed norms for patented drugs would ensure that essential medicines not available here due to patent protection are affordable.

NOVEL LICENSING MODEL BY GILEAD
American bio-pharmaceutical company Gilead concluded unique generic licensing deals with 10 Indian pharma firms to distribute its HIV drug Viread. This licensing model would facilitate anti-AIDS drugs at affordable prices in India and 94 other resource-limited countries.
According to these non-exclusive licences manufacturers can sell generic versions of the key anti-AIDS drugs Viread and Truvada, charging a five per cent royalty on sales of finished products. The agreements include a full technology transfer, to enable faster ramp-up of production of high quality product, and allow the generic companies to manufacture commercial quantities of both Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) and finished products
Furthermore, Gilead has also appointed Piramal Healthcare as its distribution partner for selling branded Viread (Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate) in India.
"Availability of the branded and generic version of Viread at an affordable price is likely to greatly benefit India's AIDS-afflicted. The drug is awaiting marketing approval with the Drugs Controller General of India," said Gregg Alton, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Gilead.

DUTCH GOVERNMENT ASKS FOR CLARITY ON EU RULES
The Dutch government requested the European Commission (EU) for a review of the EU Customs regulations after the seizure of high blood pressure drugs from India on the charges of patent infringement while transiting through the Dutch ports.
Dutch Foreign Trade Minister Frank Heemskerk who visited India recently, said that protection should not be used as an excuse for hampering the distribution of generic drugs among the poor people across the globe. “We have asked the EU to look into the interaction between the TRIPS agreement, which the Netherlands fully supports, on one hand, and the European Customs regulations on the other hand” Mr.Heemskerk said.
The issue of seizure of Drugs was strongly criticized by India and Brazil at the World Trade Organization stating that the incident showed the developed countries were evading global trade rules and trying to force their own tough intellectual property rules on developing countries. It is mandatory on the member countries of WTO to follow TRIPs regulations which allow developing countries to source generic drugs from third countries (non-patent holding countries) on the ground of public health.

QUANTRX® ANNOUNCES FLUOROPHARMA ISSUED US PATENT FOR IMAGING CARDIOVASCULAR PLAQUE
QuantRx® Biomedical Corporation, has announced that QuantRx’s FluoroPharma, Inc. has been issued an U.S. Patent (US7438891), covering methods of imaging cardiovascular plaque formation using F18 labeled 2-fluorodeoxy-D-glucose (FDG), by the USPTO. This patent, exclusively licensed from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), provides FluoroPharma with additional patent claims that cover imaging of atherosclerotic plaque inflammation and rupture. Molecular imaging of the inflammatory status of vulnerable atherosclerotic lesions is useful for the identification of patients at risk for a future heart attack or stroke. In vivo noninvasive clinical studies to measure carotid plaque inflammation show that 18F –FDG PET imaging can identify a subset of patients with carotid atherosclerosis that may benefit from intensified medical therapy or carotid artery intervention to prevent stroke.

RAMBUS’S INJUNCTION REQUEST DENIED
A U.S. court has rejected a request by a California company Rambus Inc. to bar South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor Inc., the world's second-largest computer memory-chip maker, from selling its DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) products in America. Rambus Inc. sought an injunction with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to ban Hynix from selling DRAM memory products, saying it infringed upon Rambus' patents.
The court, however, upheld a prior decision on Hynix's payment of damages to Rambus and ruled Hynix must pay the U.S. company royalties on sales of later-generation DRAMs sold in the U.S. Hynix said it will file an appeal over the court's damages ruling. Hynix believes that Rambus's patents are invalid, as recently confirmed by certain rulings of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

MICROSOFT GETS 10,000TH PATENT
The giant software maker has reached a milestone, having received its 10,000th U.S. patent this month. This has propelled Microsoft to the upper echelon among patent filers, though IBM still gets more patents issued than any other company. Microsoft, meanwhile, has risen to the top 5 among patent recipients and for the last two years has topped a key ranking of overall patent portfolio strength. As for the 10,000th patent, it covers a technology used in computers like Microsoft's Surface that link a real-world object with a set of data or images stored on a computer.

TRADEMARK
RELIANCE COMMUNICATIONS SEEKS TRADEMARK SIMILAR TO IPHONE
Reliance Communications Ltd has filed a Trademark application in India on ‘I PHONE’—a brand name that sounds similar to Apple Inc.’s popular mobile phone. The application was made public in September by RCom and got published in the journal in the month of October. The company sought the application to be registered under numerous classes which are classes 41, 16, 38 and 9. Trademark ‘Reliance i phone’ is made in class 38 that deals in “telecommunication services” as well as under class 9 that concerns “manufacturing and trading in apparatus for recording, transmission or reproduction of sound or images; magnetic data carriers including but not limited” to fixed wireless phones and terminals.
Interestingly this comes hardly weeks after the launch of the Apple iPhone models in India in association with Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Essar Ltd though it is vague whether Apple has applied or registered the iPhone trademark in India.

LEGAL ACTION OVER PILOT BRAND
FMCG and tobacco giant ITC has started a legal scuffle with Godfrey Phillips India (GPI) for its brand Pilot that they had launched three decades ago. This & trademark suit was filed in the Calcutta High Court against GPI alleging that GPI had infringed the trade name 'Pilot'. ITC had obtained an interim stay restraining GPI from using the trade name.
GPI has argued that their brand is Pilot No 1 and not Pilot and the colour combination of the product is also different from that of ITC.

COPYRIGHT
UKIPO LAUNCHES CONSULTATION PAPER ON ISSUES ON THE FUTURE DIRECTION OF COPYRIGHT
The United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) has launched a consultation on the future direction of copyright. The consultation is aimed at a wide range of stakeholders and seeks to evaluate the current copyright system in the UK and its efficiency in promoting creativity, for the economy and the general public.
The UKIPO has produced an Issues paper to be used for the consultation and inviting stakeholders to express their views until February 2009. It covers key areas of discussion including the access to copyrighted works, incentives for investment and creativity, and the authentication of works. It also focuses heavily on the global dimension of discussions about the future of copyright as well as on aspects related to the digital economy.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
DEADLINE TO CLEAR PENDING CASES
The Indian Patent Office has decided to dispose all pending patent and trademark cases by 31st March, 2009 on which final hearing has been held.
At present, a number of opposition cases both under pre-grant and post-grant are pending for disposal after final hearing with Joint, Deputy and Assistant controllers leading to complaints by aggrieved persons.
Though the all-India numbers of the pending cases were not disclosed, but an official said that in Delhi alone there are roughly 154 cases.

TRAINING FOR COPS IN MATTERS OF PIRACY
A training programme for police officers of Maharashtra was organized by Indian Music Industry (IMI) Anti Piracy Wing to raise awareness about intellectual property Rights and the importance of its protection.IMI discussed the importance of creating awareness about Copyright laws amongst police officials that would be helpful in their day to day activities. Indian Music Industry (IMI) represents 75 per cent of the legitimate recording industry in India. The IMI intends to liaise with government authorities on matters relating to Copyright. It also plans to organize and conduct anti-piracy operations.