The LexCampus Weekly Newsletter No.31
4th August, 2021
Hi,
This week’s judgement is from the High Court of Delhi regarding an appeal filed by Astrazeneca, challenging a previous order by the same court regarding interim relief of injunction against Intas Pharmaceuticals for protection of its patented compound Dapagliflogin. Our blogpost this week is an interesting update on the topic of AI as inventors; we discuss the decisions by South Africa and Australia to recognise AI tool DABUS as an inventor, independent of any human inventor being involved. We then conclude with a few important tips on drafting a patent.
PATENT CASE LAW SUMMARY
Astrazeneca AB & Ors v. Intas Pharmaceuticals Ltd.& Ors.
2021 SCC OnLine Del 3746
In a 2020 decision of the Delhi High Court, AstraZeneca AB was denied interim injunction against Intas Pharmaceuticals Limited (Intas) regarding manufacturing of the compound in issue i.e., Dapagliflozin [“DAPA”], which was alleged to be infringing the Plaintiff’s two patents bearing Indian Patent numbers 205147 [“IN 147”] and 235625 [“IN 625”], the former being the genus patent while the latter being claimed to be the species patent. Aggrieved by the denial of interim relief, Astrazeneca preferred an appeal. Read more
PATENT BLOG
DABUS: The First AI Inventor
South Africa has accepted a patent application naming an AI as an inventor, and has marked a new milestone in the evolution of patent law. The patent is for “a food container based on fractal geometry that improves grip and heat transfer,” and was accepted by South Africa’s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission on June 24. The patent recognises DABUS as the inventor, and the machine’s owner as the patent owner. Soon after the acceptance from South Africa, a Federal Court in Australia on 30th July, 2021 held that an artificial intelligence system is capable of being an “inventor” under the Australian patent law. These two decisions have sparked a discussion around the world regarding their implications. Read more
PATENT DRAFTING TIPS – DEPENDENT CLAIMS
- The statement of dependency on a prior claim need not be mentioned in the preamble to a claim. This means that an indication of dependency may be included in the preamble of the dependent claim, or in the main body thereof.
- To ascertain whether a claim is truly a dependent claim, it needs to be checked whether each limitation of the parent claim is also a limitation of the dependent claim. This is to mean that any infringement of the parent claim would also necessarily mean an infringement of the dependent claim.
That’s all folks for this week.
Team LexCampus