Indian patent law and patent owners, several past years has brought a lot of biting the bullet way outs; the grant of first compulsory licence, making Novartis airless and to take more steps towards making the system more and more transparent. India has been in constant talks with respect to patent litigation; now days they've all been the subject of fairly public litigation.
In the recent swagger in Symed Labs Ltd. v. Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd. plaintiff had asked for an ad-interim injection restraining the defendants from initiating anything directly or indirectly dealing in the product "Linezolid" manufactured in a manner so as to result in violation of the rights awarded to plaintiff's process patents. In the issue the plaintiff is true owner of the patents IN213062 and IN213063 to provide an effort to develop a more economical, safe and commercially viable process for preparation of Linezolid having "N-[3-Chloro-2(R)-hydroxypropyl]-3-fluro-4-morpholinyl-anlaniline" (CHFA), "N-3 [Phthalimido-2(R)-hydroxypropyl]-3-fluro-4 (morpholinyl) aniline" (PHPFMA) and Zodiac-4.
The plaintiff has made the first run in the early January 2013 and defendant has reverted by filing a written statement to the plaint and replied to the injection application by arguing against novelty of the instant process as well as intermediates. In the beginning the call for the plaintiff was to satisfy the territorial jurisdiction to entertain the suit. The motion ran with constant efforts of both the parties including lab reports submitted by plaintiff and defendant's arguments over to falsifying the novelty of the invention. The burden lay on the defendant when the plaintiff has submitted the lab reports disclosing the presence of CHFA and PHPFMA in to the samples of the defendant's products though the defendants were not admitting the facts of the same. Over to all inputs from both the parties the court has way to considered factum of challenge of suit patent by Optimus Pharma and Sharon Bio-Medicine in counter claims filed in the earlier suits and winning injections against them without any challenge or any suit for revocation of the patents and even furthermore it is pertinent to note that defendant did not apply for it either. Grabbing and combining the facts and having inviolable observation for about six long years even when the defendants were purchasing Linezolid API from the plaintiff, it was difficult for defendant to challenge the plaintiff's patents. However, despite the urges made by the defendants to come up with the clear arguments, it was the fact again "a time and money of the inventors indulged to developing the invention" convinced the judge where he had observed a good prima facia case in favour. He added in the end that "in my view, protection to the patent process ought to be granted to the plaintiff as damages will not be an efficacious remedy. Thus, there will be irreparable loss and injury because of long uninterrupted use of the patents, the balance of convenience also lies in favour of the plaintiff" and by stating that the ad interim injunction has been granted.
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