“The case has attracted a lot of interest in India because it is perceived as an attempt by Novartis to evergreen, which is a term used to describe the practice of unfairly extending the life of an existing invention by getting a new patent on another form of the same compound,” says Srividhya Ragavan, a professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, USA.

In addition to being novel and non-obvious, Indian patent law stipulates that new forms of known drugs (such as new salts, isomers, particle sizes, polymorphs (different crystalline forms of the same chemical substance) and so on) must have enhanced efficacy compared to the parent compound. “The evolving patent jurisprudence in India represents a stricter threshold to getting a patent in India compared to, for example, the United States,” highlights Ragavan. “The requirement for increased efficacy has become representative of one such threshold where an otherwise patentable invention (that is novel and non-obvious) can be denied patent protection,” she continues.

Enjoying our latest content?
Log in or create an account to continue

  • Access the most recent journalism from Nature's award-winning team
  • Explore the latest features & opinion covering groundbreaking research
Access through your institution

or

Sign in or create an account
Continue with Google
Continue with ORCiD