page_title: Novartis v. Union of India & Others
section_title: Initial patent prosecution and litigation
hierarchical_section_title: Novartis v. Union of India & Others / Background / Initial patent prosecution and litigation
context_page_description: Novartis v. Union of India & Others is a landmark decision by a two-judge bench of the Indian Supreme Court on the issue of whether Novartis could patent Gleevec in India, and was the culmination of a seven-year-long litigation fought by Novartis. The Supreme Court upheld the Indian patent office's rejection of the patent application.
  The patent application at the center of the case was filed by Novartis in India in 1998, after India had agreed to enter the World Trade Organization and to abide by worldwide intellectual property standards under the TRIPS agreement. As part of this agreement, India made changes to its patent law; the biggest of which was that prior to these changes, patents on products were not allowed, while afterwards they were, albeit with restrictions. These changes came into effect in 2005, so Novartis' patent application waited in a "mailbox" with others until then, under procedures that India instituted to manage the transition. India also passed certain amendments to its patent law in 2005, just before the laws came into effect, which played a key role in the rejection of the patent application.
  The patent application claimed the final form of Gleevec.
context_section_description: As mentioned above, Novartis' patent application on the beta crystalline form of imatinib mesylate was filed in India in 1998 and put in a "mail-box" as per the TRIPS agreement.  The application was processed in 2005 once the law in India allowed for product patents. The Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs rejected the application on 25 January 2006 as failing to satisfy requirements for novelty and non-obviousness. As the appellate board was not yet convened, Novartis filed several appeals before the Madras High Court in 2006. 
  Before the High Court could decide on the issue of patentability, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) was formed and in 2007 the case was transferred before the IPAB in line with section 117G of the Indian Patent Act. The IPAB on 26 June 2009 modified the decision of the Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs stating that ingredients for grant of patent novelty and non obviousness to person skilled in the art were present in the application but rejected the application on the ground that the drug is not a new substance but an amended version of a known compound and that Novartis was unable to show any significant increase in the efficacy of the drug and it, therefore, failed the test laid down by section 3(d) of the Indian Patents Act.
  Novartis mounted a separate and concurrent litigation before the Madras High Court arguing that section 3(d) of the Indian Patents Act violated Article  14  of the Indian constitution because the definition of "enhanced efficacy" was too vague and left too much power in the hands of the patent examiner, and was in violation of India's obligations under the TRIPs agreement because it rendered inventions that should be patentable, unpatentable, and argued that the Court was the proper venue for hearing the claim concerning violation of TRIPS. Counsel for the Indian government argued that any violation of TRIPS belonged before the Dispute Settlement  Board established by TRIPS, not before the Court, and that in any case, TRIPS allowed national laws to address the needs of its citizens; with respect to the claim that the amended law was arbitrary, counsel argued that "enhanced efficacy" is well understood in the pharmaceutical arts.  In 2007 the High Court decided, agreeing with Novartis that it had the right to hear the case, and agreeing with counsel for the Indian government that the law was not vague, and that the law complied with TRIPS, and observed that section 3(d) aims to prevent evergreening and to provide easy access for Indian citizens to life saving drugs. Novartis did not further challenge this order.
  After IPAB rejected the patent application in 2009, Novartis appealed directly before the Supreme Court through a Special Leave Petition (SLP) under Article 136 of the Indian Constitution; under normal circumstances, an appeal from IPAB should have been before one of the High Courts before it could proceed to the Supreme Court. However the patent if granted on appeal would expire by 2018 and thus any further appeal at that stage would be pointless. Considering this urgency and the need for an authoritative decision on section 3(d) (other cases on this issue were pending before various High courts), the Supreme Court granted special leave to bypass the High Court appeals process and come directly before it.
caption: The free base form of anti-cancer agent imatinib.  Imatinib mesylate is a salt formed by a 1:1 reaction of imatinib and methanesulfonic acid.