Patent authorities in India have denied reports that India had partly revoked patent granted to Roche for its breast cancer drug herceptin.

“It is submitted that the said divisional applications have not been revoked but were treated as withdrawn due to non-filing of Request for Examination within prescribed time or abandoned due to incorrect filing. Before the Controllers issued their decisions, the applicants were given due opportunity of being heard but the applicants have chosen not to attend.   Still thereafter, the applicant may explore further legal possibilities, as they so desire,”  said Kolkota Patent Office.

According to the report in a Swiss newspaper, India has partly revoked patents granted to Roche Holding AG for its breast cancer drug herceptin. Swiss newspaper Schweiz am Sonntag reported that the Kolkata Patent Office had lifted divisional patents for herceptin on July 17 on the grounds they had not been properly submitted.

However, Kolkota Patent Office said the news item did  not “fully reflect and appreciate the situation under which the Patent Office has disposed of the said divisional applications.”

“An application for patent IN/PCT/2000/391/KOL was filed on 11-10-2000 and was later granted a patent with a title “A composition comprising a mixture of anti-HER2 antibody”. The grant of the patent was published on 06.04.2007. It may be noted that after the grant of a patent, the said grant may be opposed by an interested member of the public. In the instant case, the grant of the said patent has been challenged through this post-grant opposition procedure,” said an official statement.

“ As per the Indian Patents Act, a patent is granted for one invention only [Section 46 of the Patents Act]. If the claims of an application relate to more than one application, such application can be divided and further applications (called divisional applications, please see Section 16 of the Act) can be filed. A divisional application has to be filed before the date of grant of the first application (usually referred as   mother application). Let it be noted that after the filing of the application, the application is duly published in the Official journal. An applicant has to file a request for examination for an application within forty eight months from the date of priority of the application (other than divisional applications) and within forty eight months from the date of priority or within six months from the date of filing in the case of divisional applications. If the requests are not filed within time they are treated as withdrawn under section IIB(4) of the Act.   Three divisional applications were filed out of this application”, it said.

In all these cases, the Controllers of the Patent Office offered the applicant, opportunity of being heard before the final disposal of these cases.    In  1638/KOLNP/2005, the Controller found that the Request for Examination had been filed on 17.03.2006, i.e., beyond the prescribed period (which was due on 16.02.2006) according to Rule 24(B)(iv) of the Patents Rules. An opportunity of hearing was offered on 18.06.2013 before exercising any discretion vested in the controller by or under this Act adversely to the applicant. At the request of the applicant’s newly appointed agent the hearing was rescheduled on 23.07.2013. The agent of the applicant did not appear in the hearing and even did not submit any notes of argument. Under these circumstances, the Controller ordered that the application should be treated as withdrawn by the applicant under section 11B(4) of the Act, according to the release

“ In the matter of 3272/KOLNP/2008, the Controller found that the instant application was divisional to a divisional application, which in his opinion was not permissible. As the present application was to be construed as the divisional application of the first filed application (IN/PCT/2000/391/KOL), the said divisional application was filed after the grant of the first filed application and was not permissible under the ‘Act. The Controller gave due opportunity of hearing to the agent on 31/05/2013. After the first hearing, the Controller fixed another date of hearing in the subject matter on 15/07/2013, which was not attended by the applicant. In the operative part of the decision the Controller said “the application no. 3273/KOLNP/2008 is not considered to be a divisional application at all within the meaning of section 16 of the ‘Act. The application has not been properly filed complying with the requirements of the ‘Act and therefore, treated as abandoned”, the statement said.

In the matter of 3273/KOLNP/2008 also, similar decision was arrived at by the Controller and in the instant case also, the applicant’s agent did not turn up on the date of the hearing, the patent office said.