Few Indians will be able to afford the drugs once they come to market, especially after patent rules are tightened up.
Patent rules can be bent in a variety of ways to delay generic drugmakers from bringing previously patent-protected products to market.
It reveals the typical divide between the technology industry, which tends to fear overbroad patents, and the biotechnology and pharmaceuticals industry, which favors more liberal patent rules.
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Also adding to the anxiety: a Supreme Court decision in April setting higher standards for obtaining a patent and new rules from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last month that, among other things, limit the number of continuing patent applications that can be filed.
The EU competition watchdog is investigating whether Samsung broke EU competition rules by filing patent lawsuits against Apple.
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It may not be possible to define software patents precisely, it may be easy for patent applicants to game any software-specific rules, and we have to find a way to remain in compliance with our treaty obligations.
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Under the pre-AIA first-to-invent rules, Company A can get the patent because its employee invented first.
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Chiefly, as a patent examiner, you learn how by following the rules.
They essentially upheld the law as most patent lawyers understood it, and deliberately avoided making any new rules to define what can be patented.
The problem is that the PTO has proposed rules for implementing supplemental examination that would require the patent owner to mount an assault in detail on the validity of his own patent.
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So any special rules for software patents will just push innovators and their patent lawyers to seek patent protection for hardware that achieves the same outcome, obtaining the synthetic equivalent of a software patent.
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According to WTO rules, countries must either accept the WTO's stringent patent-protection regime for plant and animal products or set up their own systems for protection.
While the patent system is enshrined in the Constitution, Congress has the job of specifying the rules.
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