USD600000

Goal Zero has got its US design patent as a Milestone patent – USD600000 issued by USPTO on September 15, 2009. The patent disclose, design of a battery system that works in conjunction with a solar briefcase that recharges the system using sunlight. The patent copy was presented to Robert Workman, the CEO of Goal Zero by Secretary Kappos and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

Source: USPTO annual report 2009

Intellectual Property Monetization

A process of extracting value from Intellectual Property is termed as IP Monetization. The process involves research on the patented technology in order to raise partnership/collaboration, licensing the technology. In other words, the service provides a single platform to extract revenue/value from its IP portfolio.

According to TTC groups, the service includes,


 - Thorough technology and market assessments for commercial/investor interest
 - Evaluation and recommendation of appropriate funding scenarios and deal structure:

• Strategic (corporate and corporate venture funds)
• Private equity
• Venture capital and specialty Life Sciences hedge fund market investors
• Patient and disease advocacy groups
• Segment angel
• New (stand-alone) company vs. licensing of technology(ies)

 - Valuation of up-front investment, milestone payments, maintenance fees royalty structure, etc.
 - Create detailed pro-forma financial models with scenario analyses, incorporating market models into revenue build
 - Packaging commercial strategy and value propositions for recommended capital vehicle and deal structure, including preparation of robust business/development plan(s) to support raise, accompanied by non-confidential and confidential marketing materials
 - Developing the funding strategy and contact lists
 - Assembly of Offering Memorandum documents; review by legal counsel and auditors, as needed
 - Presentation of investment opportunity to targeted investors/strategic partners
 - Negotiation of deal terms with interested investors
 - Search and recommend CEO/CFO/Senior management, as appropriate
 - Search and recruit Scientific Advisory Board, as appropriate
 - Search and recruit Board of Directors from non-investors, as appropriate
 - Executing the commercial strategy—including dimensionalizing the technology and value propositions, and packaging the corporate entity—in an ongoing manner intended to increase valuation, engineer consent amongst gatekeeper constituents and steward the evolution of the company and its technology portfolio

USPTO Annual Report 2009

USPTO has now released its Annual report - 2009.

Read it from here: http://www.uspto.gov/about/stratplan/ar/2009/2009annualreport.pdf

Abbott Vs. Medtronic

Medtronic Inc will pay $400 million to Abbott Laboratories for infringing Abbott’s patent US5451233 on stent titled, “Angioplasty apparatus facilitating rapid exchanges” by marketing Xience.

Both the companies agreed not to sue each other over stents and stent-delivery systems for at least 10 years, Fridley-based Medtronic said Monday in a statement.

Recently Medtronic announced that paid J&J $270 million to settle all royalty disputes regarding certain stent patents.

Notably, late last month, a jury in Texas said Abbott should pay J&J’s Centocor unit $1.67 billion in royalties on the arthritis drug Humira, the biggest patent verdict in U.S. history. While Abbott is challenging the verdict, this is indeed good news to Abbott Laboratories.

Source: Morningstar, finance-commerce, Medicaldevicestoday

Merck's step-2 on Merck-Schering plough merger

Merck, on 24th July'09 has proposed settlement of litigations involving between the two companies. The company explains that it has agreed to settle the suits in order to avoid further costs and inherent uncertainity of litigiation.

Details about the same published in Merck's website: www.merck.com

Kaye Scholer LLP

Information on a U.S based LLP

Kaye Scholer LLP, is one of the leading pharma/biotech legal practitionar in the United States.

Expertise: Vast expertise in presenting complex patent cases to juries, employing full-time scientific advisors, former federal prosecutors and former patent examiners to reinforce the argument.

Recent Success: Kaye Scholer LLP has successfully defended a district court victory at the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a patent infringement case for client Comdata Stored Value Solutions, Inc. On April 30, 2009, the Federal Circuit affirmed the decision of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, which had entered judgment in favor of Comdata and three other gift card companies in a patent infringement suit brought by the plaintiff Every Penny Counts, Inc. In affirming the district court, the Federal Circuit agreed that the patent-in-suit could not be construed to cover the purchase of a gift card.

Alan M. Fisch (Partner, Litigation, Washington Office) argued the appeal and was joined on the brief by team members Jason Hoffman, Coke Morgan Stewart (both Counsel, Litigation, Washington Office), Bill Sigler (Litigation, Washington Office), and Kevin Jakel (Litigation, Washington Office). This is the third Federal Circuit victory for Alan and his team in the last ten months.

Clients: Pfizer, Genentech, Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, Purdue Pharma, Wyeth and Hoffmann-La Roche.

Client feedback: ‘ Kaye Scholer LLP is highly responsive, and sensitive to our budgetary needs’

Office Location: Washington DC, Shanghai, Palm Beach, New York, Los Angeles, London , Chicago and Frankfurt

Source of information:
http://www.legal500.com/firms/50515/offices/50335#
http://www.kayescholer.com/news/firm_news/20090501

Time lines of Indian Patent Act

Time lines in Indian patent act

1) To file complete specification after provisional: within 12 months from the date of provisional filing

2) U/S 8 time within statement of undertaking (status of similar/equivalent applications in other countries) to be filed is "6 months from the date of application"

3) U/S 10 & U/R 13: Declaration of inventorship is to be filed within one month from the date of filing of complete specification

4) U/S 11A & U/R 24: publication of applications is ordinarily be 18 months from date of filing of application or date of priority date, whichever is earlier

5) U/S 11B & U/R 24B: Examination of applications: Request for examination is to be filed within 48 months from the date of filing of application or from the date of priority; whichever is earlier.

6) U/S 12 & U/R 24B (3): first examination report may be sent to applicant within 6 months from the date of request for examination or from the date of publication; whichever is later

7) U/S 16: Divisional applications may be filed, if applicant desired or as a remedy for objection raised in examination, "any time before the grant of patent"

8) U/S 21: Time to Application in order for grant is 12 months from the date of first examination report

9) U/S 25(1) & U/R 55: To file pre-grant opposition/representation: any time before the grant of patent; ordinarily no patent will be granted before 6 months from the date of publication.

10) U/S 25(2): To file post grant opposition: within one year from the date of publication of grant of patent

11) U/S 53: Term of patent is 20 years from the date of filing of application for the patent. [in case of PCT application, term of patent will be 20 years from the date of filing of international application, not from the date of indian national pahse application]

12) U/S 55: Term of patent of addition is equal to term of main patent

13) U/S 60: Application for restoration of ceased patent: within 18 months from the date of patent ceased to have effect.

14) U/S 61 & U/R 85 Opposition to restoration of patent: within two months from the date of publication of restoration

15) U/S 84: Compulsory license: any time after expiry of three years from the grant of patent

16) U/S 135: Convention Applications: within 12 months from the date of basic application

17) U/R 20 (4) (i): National phase application: within 31 months from the date of priority [U/R 20(2) no application will be processed before expiry of this time period]

What are Counterfeit Drugs?

Drugs that are illegally imported to a country are termed as counterfeit drugs. These drugs are both dangerous and may potentially cause financial damages to the patent holder.

What are Gray Market Drugs?

Drugs that are manufactured by the patent holder and exported to foreign market, and these drugs when re-sold into the US, they are referred to as Gray Market Drugs. These drugs are not counterfeit drugs.

Read it from site http://www.lventre.com/druginfr.html, written by Louis Ventre, Jr. The site is contentful and more interesting legal information is available in the site.

Defending an Infringement case

I read an interesting article from a website “PatentandProperty” written by Kenneth B. Herman and Christopher J. Harnett.

The article provides a background on

• the infringement case,
• how to deal with the infringement case,
• applicable rules,
• safety measures and
• success formulae with live example

For details, visit http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/mdd/v04/i07/html/07patents.html

(Re)search Astrazeneca Pipeline drugs Phase III

Granted Pharma Patents on 10/07/2009

The Indian Patent journal is published every week on Friday

Last Friday (10/07/2009) some important granted patents on pharma/biotech are published here

Novartis - Imatinib - India (High impact)

Imatinib = wiki article

Novartis patent application on imatinib is rejected by IPAB

Reported - News in media

European (swiss) News Channels [1] [2]

Trading markets [Link]

SpicyIP post [1] [2]

Livemint [Link]

Deccan chronicle [Link]

Business standard [Link]

The Telegraph [Link]

Little About [Link]

Economics Times [Link]

Business line [Link]

Wall street journal [1] [2]

& in ipnewsflash repeatedly updated by various news channels

Livemint report is detailed & comprehensive

My previous post on this blog [Link]

An Historical Verdict!

A case filed by Centocor -a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson against Abbott laboratory’s product, HUMIRA has turned in favor of Centocor. Abbott must now pay $1.67 billion as its HUMIRA infringes Centocor’s US7070775. That is, $1.17 billion for lost profits and $504 million as a reasonable royalty. The case was filed in 2007, and the verdict is awarded on 30th June’09 in Marshall, Texas.

Notably, Bayer has also filed a case late last year against Humira...

Source: http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2009/06/centocor-v-abbott-ed-texas-jury-awards-largest-patent-verdict-ever.html

Chemical Databases

Chemical Databases for Literature search

1. Chem Spider: http://www.chemspider.com/

2. Chem ID Plus: http://chem.sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemidplus/chemidlite.jsp

3. Chem ID Plus-Advanced: http://chem.sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemidplus/

Biomedical Databases

Useful literature search sites for your research

Free Databases:

1. Pubmed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

2. Hubmed: http://www.hubmed.org/

3. Scirus: http://www.scirus.com/

4. Medline Plus: http://medlineplus.gov/

5. National Rehabilitation Information Center: http://www.naric.com/public/default.cfm

6. ABLEDATA: http://www.abledata.com/abledata.cfm?pageid=19327&sectionid=19327

7. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Disease: http://www.niams.nih.gov/

8. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/

9. Protein Data Bank (RCSB): http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/home/home.do

10. NLM Gateway: http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/gw/Cmd

11. NLM Toxnet: http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?HSDB

12. http://www.edqm.eu/site/page_581.php

13. US FDA: http://www.fda.gov/

14. Orange book -Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/ob/docs/queryai.cfm

15. World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/medicines/en/

16. World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/pharmacopoeia/overview/en/index.html

17. NLM Toxnet: http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/

18. Integrated Risk Information System: http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?IRIS

19. Chemical Carcinogenesis Research Information System: http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?CCRIS

20. Genetic Toxicology: http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?GENETOX

21. LactaMed: http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?LACT

22. HOUSEHOLD PRODUCT DATABASE: http://hpd.nlm.nih.gov/

23. Toxline: http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?TOXLINE

24. Development and Reproductive Toxicology / Environmental Teratology Information Center: http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?DARTETIC

25. PubChem Substance: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pcsubstance

26. PubChem Compound: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pccompound

27. PubChem BioAssay: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pcassay

28. Entrez Search: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/gquery

29. OMIM (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=OMIM

30. Genetic Database: http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/ and http://www.genetests.org/

31. Testing laboratories for a rare disease or syndrome: http://www.orpha.net/consor/cgi-bin/home.php?Lng=IT

32. Evidence based medicine databases:
a. http://www.shef.ac.uk/scharr/ir/netting/
b. http://www.pedro.fhs.usyd.edu.au/index.html
c. http://www.rehabtrials.org/
d. Turning Research into Practice (TRIP): http://www.tripdatabase.com/index.html

33. Health Technology Assessment Databases:
a. INATHA – International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment http://www.inahta.org/Home/
b. http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/crdweb/

34. Health Service Research: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=hstat

35. Health Services Research Resources: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/hsrr_search/

36. Database Catalogs: http://databases.biomedcentral.com/browsecatalog and http://databases.biomedcentral.com/search

Share Market

I came across an interesting blog on share market. The blog is written and maintained by Mr. K.R Vijay Ganesh from Salem, India. Most of the information is in Tamil language that facilitates the localites to learn shares.

His blog educates the basics of share market, stocastic (indicators), and information on time frame, MACD, camrilla equation and more. People familiar with tamil can use the website: http://krvijayganesh.wordpress.com/