Book Review

The Law of Patents – with a special focus on pharmaceuticals in India

Author: Feroz Ali Khader.

Publisher: Lexis Nexis Butterworth

Price: Rs. 1595/-

As blogged earlier, a close friend and Advocate, Feroz has written an excellent book on the law of patents in India. This is my first book review so I am not exactly sure as to what must be written but below are some thoughts on the Book.

The Book truly represents a modern treatise on Indian Patent Law. All Indian practitioners are aware of the other Indian treatise on patents- Narayanan’s Book on Patents but the same is hopelessly outdated. So, in the first instance, Feroz’s book fills in a very important void and that too with the most updated law on patents.

Feroz uses a large number of case references from British as well as European Patent law practice. This should provide practitioners with a well rounded view in a subject where India does not have a lot of precedents. The book has a lot of references and that too is helpful. Honestly, the only thing that I did not like about the book was its weight L

Now coming to specific chapters, I am very impressed and thoroughly enjoyed reading chapter 3- pharmaceutical inventions. Feroz has done a great job of analysing and interpreting the now famous S.3d of Indian Patents Act. He has dug in deep and found the position as necessitated by TRIPs too. He has a separate chapter on opposition proceedings that come with detailed explanations and perspectives.

The Book includes the Patent law and Rules as an Appendix and hence readers do not need to keep a separate copy handy. Besides this, there are other reference materials like the Doha declaration on public health etc which make the reading easy and research compact!

Being from the generic pharmaceutical space, I naturally read the above mentioned chapters first and now plan to read the other chapters. Feroz has also started a blog specifically on this book, which will have updates on new developments in this area of law.

Seeing the way interest mounting in this field of law, I can surely see the following category of people benefiting from this Treatise:

a) Patent law practitioners and Counsels;

b) In-house IP management departments;

c) In-house legal departments/ Counsels.

d) Students of IP law, particularly those looking at deeper aspects of Patent law – Masters of law etc.

This is not to say that the book should not be used by others. J Though there is larger focus on pharmaceuticals, I think the book deals with patents concepts which are of importance to patents in general equally well. So, even patent practitioners in non-pharmaceutical space will benefit a lot from reading the same. The book makes for excellent reading / reference and I recommend it whole heartedly to any one interested in Indian Patent law.

So, go ahead and get your [heavy] copy TODAY. © Sandeep K. Rathod, 2007

P.S. Another short review has been posted by the guys at my favourite blog, IPKat.