PHM-Exch> HUGE VICTORY - VALGANCICLOVIR PATENT IS OVERTURNED IN INDIA

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Dr MIRA SHIVA mirashiva at gmail.com

 Forwarding some good news about Valganciclovir . The lawyers of Lawyers
Collective need to b ongratulated .
regard
Mira


  Dear Friends,

Since good news these days is scarce, I thought this little bit of news
would cheer everyone up. The valganciclovir patent that the Patent Office
granted to Roche in 2007 which was announced with much fanfare as the first
in India has, after a long, complicated and at times legally ridiculous
journey been overturned by the Patent Office. The Patent Office agreed that
the product patent claims were (1) obvious and (2) did not satisfy the
requirements of Section 3(d). What was very, very important about this
decision was the issue of whether patients groups can file post grant
oppositions. The Patent Office held that they can.

The judgment is available at
http://124.124.220.67/decision/959-MAS-1995-462/207232.pdf. Attached are the
press releases from Lawyers Collective and MSF.




PS - All these battles being fought are of course in grave danger from the
EU-India and Japan-India FTA negotiations. Please join the battle against
the FTAs. There is an urgent need for our voices to reach the government to
immediately halt the FTA negotiations. Please write to the health ministry,
your state government, the Prime Minister, the President, Sonia Gandhi, your
political party...and reach out to other groups on this. Please visit this
website http://www.forumagainstftas.org/ or write to me separately for more
information.
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