Uncertain times for antibodies in India

Subject matter patentability and sufficiency requirements are issues that are dealt with at the Indian Patent Office (IPO). Issues/challenges relating to these aspects often go unnoticed unless there is an opposition involved. Here we are writing about trends in India in relation to antibodies. The increase in investment in research in the fields of biotechnology and antibodies, in particular, has led to an increase in filing of patent applications related to antibodies.

More than 750 patents have been granted in India for antibodies and several are pending, which is a positive trend. However, there are two core areas in the field of antibody-related inventions which seem to be unsettled and need to be corrected soon. The first is how to characterise/define antibodies and the second is subject matter patentability.

Antibodies can be characterised in several ways, such as: