In yet another landmark victory to the Indian patent scenario, Ajanta Pharma, a specialty focused pharmaceutical formulation company, emerged successful in revoking two composition patents of Allergan Inc. used for eye-related treatments.
Ajanta Pharma succeeds in revoking 2 Allergan patents
In yet another landmark victory to the Indian patent scenario, Ajanta Pharma, a specialty focused pharmaceutical formulation company, emerged successful in revoking two composition patents of Allergan Inc. used for eye-related treatments.
Ajanta had applied for revocation of both the patents under independent applications in 2011 on grounds of obviousness, not an invention, not patentable, insufficiency and non-disclosure under Section 8 of the Patents Act (2005) with Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). The combination patent decision has emerged as a landmark decision at IPAB.
Both the patents viz. IN 212695 and IN 219504 were granted by the Kolkata Patent Office in December 2007 and May 2008 respectively. IN 212695 was related to invention for the composition covering Bimatoprost and Timolol (GANFORT of Allergan) whereas IN 219504 was related to invention for the composition covering Brimonidine and Timolol (COMBIGAN of Allergan).
Ajanta filed revocation petitions with IPAB for both the patents believing that both these patents are invalid and unenforceable under IPA, 1970 and that these patents were granted on false representation. The IPAB, which has been constituted by the Central Government in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to hear appeals against the decisions of the Registrar/Controller from the Patent & Trademark Offices and all appeals from various High Courts, rightly revoked both these patents on grounds of Obviousness and Breach of section (8) of IPA, 1970, as put forward by Ajanta.
Ajanta has already been successfully selling BIMAT T and BIDIN LS in Indian market and will continue to sell backed by this favourable verdict.
Ajanta Pharma has leading brands in therapeutic segments of ophthalmology, dermatology and cardiology.