Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], Bharat Biotech has added the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) as co-owner of the COVID-19 vaccine patent.
Notably, Bharat Biotech was working on developing the COVID-19 vaccine as a top priority to ensure availability of the product as soon as possible. Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL)'s Covid vaccine development faced many challenges and all the organizations were in a hurry to develop the vaccine and file appropriate patents, before any other entity or before any data was published in journals. .
Bharat Biotech's Covid vaccine application was filed in the above circumstances and since the copy of the BBIL-ICMR agreement, being a confidential document, was not available. Therefore, ICMR was not included in the original application, the press release said.
The release said that although it was completely unintentional, such mistakes are not unusual for the Patent Office and therefore, patent law provides provisions to correct such mistakes.
“BBIL greatly respects ICMR and is grateful to ICMR for their continuous support on various projects, hence as soon as this inadvertent mistake was discovered, BBIL rectified the same by involving ICMR as a co-owner of the patent applications. The process of improvement has been started." “Covid-19 vaccine,” the press release said.
It further informed that the necessary legal documents for this are being prepared and BBIL will file those documents with the Patent Office as soon as they are prepared and signed.
Notably, these actions are in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between ICMR-NIV Pune and BBIL for joint development of COVID-19 vaccine in April 2020, the press release stated.
Notably, Bharat Biotech was working on developing the COVID-19 vaccine as a top priority to ensure availability of the product as soon as possible. Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL)'s Covid vaccine development faced many challenges and all the organizations were in a hurry to develop the vaccine and file appropriate patents, before any other entity or before any data was published in journals. .
Bharat Biotech's Covid vaccine application was filed in the above circumstances and since the copy of the BBIL-ICMR agreement, being a confidential document, was not available. Therefore, ICMR was not included in the original application, the press release said.
The release said that although it was completely unintentional, such mistakes are not unusual for the Patent Office and therefore, patent law provides provisions to correct such mistakes.
“BBIL greatly respects ICMR and is grateful to ICMR for their continuous support on various projects, hence as soon as this inadvertent mistake was discovered, BBIL rectified the same by involving ICMR as a co-owner of the patent applications. The process of improvement has been started." “Covid-19 vaccine,” the press release said.
It further informed that the necessary legal documents for this are being prepared and BBIL will file those documents with the Patent Office as soon as they are prepared and signed.
Notably, these actions are in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between ICMR-NIV Pune and BBIL for joint development of COVID-19 vaccine in April 2020, the press release stated.
