Financial Express, June 20, 2007
The Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), which has been formed to give a verdict on various patent cases across the country, may reject Novartis objection on the presence of S Chandrasekharan, the former patent controller, on IPAB.

Novartis had objected to Chandrasekharans presence on the board saying he was responsible for Glivec being denied product patent in 2006, when he was the controller general of patents.Experts close to the development say that IPAB will consider the fact that Chandrasekharan was actually not responsible for the decision on Glivecs patent application. IPAB will consider Novartis objection on July 2.

An attorney from Madras High Court, who is close to the Glivec case, told FE, The role of Chandrasekharan is entirely different now. While he was in the Chennai patent office, he had administrative responsibilities only. It was not he who took the decision.
Subramaniam, who is the examiner and Rengaswamy, the patent controller, took the final decision and as Chandrasekhar was the final authority, he gave the final consent. Anyway, he was not directly involved with the decision finally taken, the attorney added.
Says Ranjit Shahani, vice-chairman and managing director, Novartis India Ltd, The government has taken a step forward in creating a fully functioning patent system by setting up IPAB.However, we objected to the appointment of the former controller general of patents as the technical member since it was in his tenure that the patent was rejected and he was also acting as a party to the recent court case reviewing the decision of the Indian Patent Office to reject our patent. We believe it would not be in the interests of natural justice for him to hear our appeal.

Another patent attorney opined that if IPAB rejects Novartis objection on these grounds, Novartis could go to the high court again with a writ petition alleging favouritism in IPABs action.

If the court finds Novartis arguments are true, IPAB will have to appoint another technical member removing Chandrasekharan, he added.At present, Justice Ansari is the legal member while Chandrasekhran is the technical member.

Novartis has challenged section 3(d) of Indian Patent Law, according to which, any new use or a new variant of an old substance cannot be patented without having any significant efficacy. On this basis, the Chennai Patent Office had rejected Novartis patent application for anti-leukemia drug, Glivec. Novartis approached the Madras High Court against the verdict arguing that Section 3 (d) of Indian Patent Act is not compliant with the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement that India had signed in 2005.

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