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The most debated aspect of patent law amendments was the need to extend product patent to the field of pharmaceuticals. Apart from the problems of handling general public health issues, the implications of these changes on the industrial base available in India to produce generic drugs at an affordable rate to large sections of people in India and other developing countries was also causing concern. Hence the amended Indian patent law in the post-TRIPS era needs to be examined to find out whether it enables the promotion of the growth of the existing industries to produce not only existing products but also new products and make it available to the public at an affordable cost while promoting overall economic and industrial growth. This requires examination of the patent law and its interpretation from a perspective and jurisprudence different from that developed by countries like the U.K. and the U.S. In this context the book under review is disappointing even though the author deserves appreciation for the efforts to bring out a general book on patent law in India.

This book is a useful addition to the general commentary on the English patent law and its application to the interpretation of the provisions of the Indian Patents Act. The structure, organisation and presentation of the material are substantially similar to English patent books. The major difference is the two chapters on pharmaceutical inventions justifying the title of the book. But contrary to the expectations, one hardly finds any special focus on pharmaceuticals in other chapters though there are references to available cases on pharmaceuticals. It is true that the provisions of the Patents Act apply uniformly to all fields of technology, but there are special problems encountered by every special field of technological inventions while applying these provisions and one expects the chapters of this book to be organised and focussed on the issues relating to pharmaceuticals so that it would have been an authoritative source in this area.

Be that as it may, as a general book on patent law this is a good attempt to have an exhaustive, though generally descriptive, analysis of the sections in the Indian Patents Act with the help of English and Indian case laws. One of the major contributions is the reference to the available Indian cases though with limited critical analysis. The important cases could have been examined in more detail to show the public interest concerns of the Indian judiciary and the need to interpret the Indian provisions keeping in mind the special public interest of India. The care taken by the author to include all the recent cases decided by the English courts and the effort to compare the Indian provisions with English law and bring out the differences are laudable.

Though the author has made it clear in the preface that the English judgments are not binding and have to be used carefully, it is unfortunate to note that the book is lacking in developing an analytical perspective which could have helped in suggesting the cases that must be rejected given the special nature of the patent law for the Indian economy and people. On the contrary, the reading of the book gives an impression that the majority of the judgments are equally good for India.

While one appreciates the efforts in the chapter on pharmaceutical inventions to critically look at the foreign cases from the Indian perspective, one may find it difficult to agree with the interpretation given by the author to various provisions in Section 3 of the Act. The interpretation given to wordings like “discovery”, “new”, “known” etc. and the failure to examine the meaning of the terms like “mere discovery” and “mere use” resulted in clumsy interpretation of Section 3(d). This has also resulted in blurring the distinction between novelty and inventive step, and its use in interpreting Section 3. An examination of the provisions in Section 3 in the light of the definition of invention, new invention, inventive step, capable of industrial application and pharmaceutical substance in Section 2 of the Act in the light of foreign cases would have enabled him to bring out with more clarity the intention of the Parliament to use the flexibilities in Article 27 of the TRIPS Agreement to keep the standard of inventiveness relatively high in India to protect public interest.

The analytical skills of the author reflected in the chapters on construction of patent claims and revocation of patent is commendable. Equal emphasis on the U.S. case laws and the reference to Indian cases like Farbweke Hoechst AG, Bishwanath Prasad etc. would have enabled the author to suggest the approach to be followed by the Indian courts to protect public interest while deciding the validity of patents.

Though the other chapters are descriptive and elaborate, covering all the provisions, one would have appreciated more discussion in the following areas: disclosure of source and geographical origin of the biological materials; right of a person who was unsuccessful in pre-grant opposition to file a post-grant opposition; limitation and exceptions particularly the scope of research exceptions in the light of English and U.S. laws; assignment of patent and assignment of right to file application in the light of English law; protection of the inventors of inventions during employment; the consequence of issuing a compulsory license for failure to manufacture the invention in India even after the patentee satisfied the reasonable requirement of access at affordable cost, and principles to be followed in issuing ex-parte injunction and “Anton Pillar orders” in case of patent infringement. One can also notice that the author fails to take note of the provisions in the Act and Rules while interpreting the nature of the orders to be passed in the pre-grant opposition application.

In spite of the lapses in the book, it has the potential to become a standard work useful for lawyers, judges and law students and hope that subsequent editions will fill the vacuum of the lack of a good patent law book in India.

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