The Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), which is hearing the appeal against the Indian patent office’s decision to not allow patent protection for Swiss drug maker Novartis’s anti-cancer drug Glivec in India, has deferred the hearing to July 10, 2007.
The case came up for hearing before IPAB in Chennai today and the respondents in the case, including the Central Government and the Indian companies like Cipla, Hetero Drugs and Ranbaxy, have asked the Board to retain S Chandrasekhar, former Controller General of Patents as technical member to hear the case, said sources.
Novartis had objected to the appointment of Chandrasekhar as a technical member of IPAB, citing he was the former Controller General of the Indian Patent Office and was responsible for the original decision on the Glivec patent in 2006 and was acting as a party in the recent Court case reviewing the decision of the Indian Patent Office to reject Glivec patent filing.
The case came up before the IPAB, following a decision of the Madras High Court to transfer a part of the case - on the decision of the Chennai patent office to reject the patent on Gleevec - to the IPAB. The Madras High Court is expected give its judgement on Novartis’s challenge on the TRIPS compatibility and the constitutionality of Section 3(d) of the Indian Patent Act.
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