ABSTRACT
In April 2013, the supreme court of India upheld the strict application of a pivotal provision in the Indian patent law, i.e. section 3(d) of the patents act, which restricts the ever greening of pharmaceutical patents. India's experience with pharmaceutical patents predates the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, and thus the history of the Novartis case stretches even further into the past. Before the 1970s, Indian patent law followed along the lines of British law, allowing foreign companies to make huge profits. At the time of independence, India was one of the countries with the highest medicine prices in the world. In case of national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency, or in cases of public non-commercial use, the TRIPS agreement allows for the issuance of a license without the authorization of the patentee. Novartis' threat that it would not introduce new medicines in India after the verdict was also hollow.
