Hearing its first ever appeal, the newly constituted patent cell at the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) in Chennai has postponed the Novartis case to July 2 for hearing. The Swiss pharma giant is challenging the Chennai patent office's decision to reject its patent application for the cancer drug Glivec on the ground that it did not qualify for protection under patent law.

Meanwhile, the Novartis has taken strong objection in hearing before S Chandrasekharan who is one of the two members of the IPAB, the other being MHS Ansari. The Novartis objection comes from the fact that Chandrasekharan was the controller general of patent office when the Novartis patent filing was rejected.

The central government had in early April this year amended the Patent Act to bring all the patent litigations filed in various courts in the country under its jurisdiction. The government on April 2 establishing the Board based in Chennai issued a notification to this effect.

Several pharmaceutical companies have filed cases in High Courts and lower courts in different states challenging the decisions of the Patent Controller in granting or denying patents since 2005. According to an estimate, there are about 20 patent related cases to be decided in various courts in the country.

Besides, the Madras High Court is expected to deliver its judgement any time now in the Novartis case challenging the compliance of the Indian Patent Act, 2005 with global fair-trade laws. The Novartis has questioned the validity of section 3(d) of the Indian Patent Law which disallows patenting incremental innovations. It was under this provision that the Chennai patent office rejected the patent application by the Novartis.