After Swiss multinational pharma major Novartis recently accused India of disrespecting intellectual property, data has now shown that India has granted at least 219 patents to Novartis in the pharmaceutical field.
According to the data from the Indian Patent Office, India started granting product patents only from 2005 onwards, in line with the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement.
The data shows that Novartis, along with its subsidiaries, secured 137 pharmaceutical product patents between 2005-06 and 2009-10.
Novartis officials themselves confirm the data’s findings.
“According to the information available with us, Novartis received 219 patents in India for inventions in the pharmaceutical field (not all of this is medicines),” Ranjit Shahani, Novartis India Vice Chairman and Managing Director told Business Standard via e-mail.
Union Commerce Minister, Anand Sharma also confirmed this information recently, during a conference in Geneva.
“Novartis is the third largest beneficiary of registration of patents in India. "Roche has 166 pharma patents registered in India, whereas Sanofi has 159 and Novartis has 147
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