Delhi High Court dismisses AstraZeneca plea saying two patents cannot be granted for one invention

Delhi High Court dismisses AstraZeneca plea saying two patents cannot be granted for one invention

Two patents cannot be granted for one invention – one for genus and the other for species, the Delhi High Court has held.

Asking for two patents for one invention strikes at the very root of the appellants' claim and disentitles them from interim relief, the court said.

A division bench of Justices Rajiv Sahai Endlaw and Rajiv Bansal dismissed the plea affixing Rs.5,00,000/- costs.

A patentee's rights are not natural and common law rights but a creation of the law i.e. statutory rights, the judges observed.

Hence the rights must be within the four corners of the Patents Act for a patentee to enjoy protection.

AstraZeneca had made nine pleas seeking an injunction against the sale of Dapagliflozin, an anti-diabetes drug by generic pharma majors Torrent, USV, Micro Labs, Zydus, and others. The relevant statutory provisions and the invention claimed in each of the two patent claims (IN 147 & IN 625) was studied by the court. Upon an inquiry of both claims, it appears completely identical without any difference between the field of invention, the court observed.

The inventor of both claims was also the same, the court said.

The court discussed the legislative intent behind the patent's limited life saying, "If patents with respect to the same invention can be granted more than once, successively in time, the same will negate the legislative intent of limiting the life of the patent and enable the patentee to prevent others from making, using or offering for sale, the new product invented by the patentee, till the time patentee successively keeps on obtaining patent therefor."

"Without DAPA being disclosed in IN 147, there could be no patent with respect to DAPA in IN 147 and which was being infringed by the respondent(s)/defendant(s) by manufacturing drugs/medicines with DAPA as ingredient," the court said.

Title: AstraZeneca AB & Anr v. INTAS Pharmaceuticals Ltd.