Ever-greening of Patents:-

“Evergreening,” is referred to the practice whereby pharmaceutical firms extend the patent life of a drug by obtaining additional 20-year patents for minor reformulations or other iterations of the drug, without necessarily increasing the therapeutic efficacy. However it has become a practice in the pharmaceutical industry where on one hand innumerable patients struggling to afford the high priced patented drugs, while on the other hand innovators struggling to give immortal value to their creation.”

Patent Act:-

A patent as described in the Indian Patent Act, 1970 as “a grant or a right to exclude others from making, using or selling ones invention and includes right to license others to make, use or sell it”.

The Core of the issue:-

Many a time, drug companies to retain the huge profit and especially after 20 years of patent, try to add trivial molecules or take recourse to various methods which neither can be termed as an invention nor should lead to secondary patent. However, pharma companies have been able to do that, which can be termed as evergreening of patents.

Once a drug loses its patent, it becomes generic and the cost falls down as low as 80%, which is not in the interest of the pharma companies, hence they employ various means and methods to have the hold over patents.

Which acts against the general interest of the public as the drugs become beyond the reach of affordability for many.

India and Secondary Patents:-

Case Study:-The rejection of a secondary patent for Novartis’ Glivec, a crucial leukaemia cure, was famously upheld by the Supreme Court of India in 2013, while the same was granted in the U.S. Consequently, the cost of a monthly dose of the medicine in the U.S. was ₹1.6 lakh, while the cost of the generic was ₹11,100 in India.

Likewise, Spiriva, a medicine for asthma, enjoys patent protection until 2021 in the U.S., largely due to secondary patents. All of these secondary patents were rejected in India. As a result, while the monthly cost of the medicine in the U.S. is over ₹19,100, it costs a mere ₹250 in India.

The Indian Patent Office, has been rejecting secondary patents and thus making healthcare, expecially medicines affordable to many.

Secondary patents for several blockbuster medicines have been rejected by the IPO dramatically expanding access to medicines for important health problems such as cancer, AIDS, asthma and cardiovascular diseases.

None of this would have been possible without some remarkable innovations in Indian patent law.

To be deemed patentable, applications for secondary patents have to clear significant hurdles.

As per Section 2(1)(ja) of the Patents Act, the product in question must feature a technical advance over what came before that’s not obvious to a skilled person. Because secondary patents for pharmaceuticals are often sought for trivial variants, they typically fail to qualify as an invention.

Further, when a medicine is merely a variant of a known substance, Section 3(d) necessitates a demonstration of improvement in its therapeutic efficacy. The provision also bars patents for new uses and new properties of known substances. This additional requirement is unique to Indian law, and along with Section 2(1)(ja), ensures that bad patents stay out of the system.

It is found that secondary patents were rejected largely due to the stringent thresholds imposed by Sections 2(1)(ja) and 3(d).

Section 3(d) is not our only defence against secondary patents. It is complemented by other exceptions to patentability: Section 3(e) ensures that patents for combinations of known substances are allowed only if there is synergistic effect, while Section 3(i) ensures that no exclusivity can be claimed over methods of treatment.

Together, Sections 3(d), 3(e) and 3(i) have been instrumental in rejecting secondary patents.

These provisions also extend to biologics, the new big players in the therapeutics marketplace. More lucrative than small molecule medicines, biologics are no stranger to the lure of secondary patenting for extending patent terms. For instance, a quarter of the secondary patents for Humira, a biologic, are directed towards new uses and methods of treatment. Thanks to the provisions in the patent law, Humira enjoys no patent protection in India, since AbbVie restricted their Indian filings to only cover their secondary patents.

Blockbuster medicines are crucial to the success of public health. But they have been gamed, and rendered inaccessible to the people and governments who need them. In order for these medicines to be accessible, there can be no surer way than to enact strong standards that put bad patents where they belong.