Novartis loses patent dispute

Novartis lost a patent case against Cipla in India over its cancer drug Gleevec when the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trademarks ruled that the drug is not an invention that it recognizes. There have been few rulings on pharmaceutical patent cases since last year when India introduced a new system that protects pharmaceutical compound patents. One technicality of the new system is that it only recognizes patents filed in India after 1995. In the Gleevec case, the patent office ruled that the key invention in the drug was protected by a patent filed in 1993. According to the controller's office, a patent Novartis filed in 1998 for a crystal modification of the free base of the drug does not qualify as an invention. Cipla will reportedly file for removal of an injunction against marketing its generic form of the drug.