Making biofules at your backyard @ $1 per gallon

E-fuel 100 Microfueler developed by Floyd Butterfield and Thomas Quinn, offers the flexibility to generate biofuel (Ethanol @ $1/gallon) at your backyard. This system is compact like a washing machine and operates on sugar content and yeast. Read more on NYT coverage

Perhaps, innovative part of the system is an advance membrane distiller, which separates water from ethanol at lower heat and fewer steps than other ethanol systems

Critics flaunted the claims and said that sugar costs 20-cents per pound, and system requires 10 to 14 pounds to make a gallon of ethanol, hence it is not viable to produce ethanol But Butterfield and his Silicon Valley finance whiz/business partner Thomas J. Quinn swears you can buy “inedible sugar” from South of the Border for 2 to 3 cents per pound.

India’s Konkan Railways filed patent in 124 countries for its safety innovation

Anti-collision Device (ACD) branded as “Raksha Kavach” developed by Konkan Railways has been successfully granted patents by China, Russia, Singapore and South Africa. Konkan Railways has filed patent application in 124 countries.

Raksha Kavach is a self-acting device that warns the train driver of any impending accident-like situation within a 3-km range.The instrument will cost approximately Rs 5 lakh (500,000) for installation in trains and Rs 10 lakh (INR 1000,000) in planes. It has already applied for international patent rights for the product in 124 countries.

Sky Bus, an alternative of metro railways for urban transport, is also innovative solution.

Visit for all patents from Konkan Railways.

My experience with Konkan railways was superb particularly in term of cusine.

Types of Patent Searches

A nice brief compilation by Vinod Kumar Singh of Competitive and Technical Intelligence Toolbox (CTIB)

Search Type	Purpose	Coverage	Comments
State-of-the-Art	Identify general and background art for a particular technology	Patents and non-patent literature. Not exhaustive.	Gives a broad picture to help guide research
Patentability, Novelty	Identify art which may affect the patentability of an invention	Patents and non-patent literature. Multiple data sources.	Narrower in scope than State-of-Art. Recommended before writing patent application
Invalidity, Opposition	Identify prior art which may impact the claims of a specific patent	Patents and non-patent literature. Employ creative strategies to elucidate previously undiscovered art before filing date of patent.	Helps remove blocking patents by anticipating claims of an invention. Establishes solidity of patent portfolio, e.g. for licensing or company acquisition
Infringement, Freedom-to-Operate, Right-to-Use, Domination	Identify patents or applications which may cover a proposed product or process	Covers patents only and which are still in force. Include both narrow and broad concepts	Often country specific. Analysis of claims.
Patent Watch	Monitor new patent activity or status changes to existing patents	Patents only	Updates at regular intervals or rapid-alerting when activity occurs
Technology Update	Monitor latest technology developments by subject	Patents and/or non-patent literature	Regular updates, weekly, monthly or other chosen frequency
Non-Patent Literature Reference Query; Biomedical Information	Research into specific questions asked by biomedical staff regarding safety, clinical, regulatory areas, or by Research Scientists, etc.	Biomedical databases or other databases as appropriate	A quick turnaround on these types of searches can normally be accommodated
Inventor, Author or Assignee	Identify references to a particular inventor, author, assignee or affiliate	Patents and/or non-patent literature	A quick turnaround on these types of searches can normally be accommodated
Legal Status	Determine whether a patent is in force, abandoned, etc.	Specialist legal status online databases (e.g. ‘INPADOC’) and/or patent office registers	A quick turnaround on these types of searches can normally be accommodated
Patent Family	Identify the first or ‘basic’ patent and subsequent ones claiming the same priority	Patent databases such as ‘World Patents Index’, ‘INPADOC’ and ‘Chemical Abstracts’	A quick turnaround on these types of searches can normally be accommodated
Cited or Citing References	Identify references	Patent databases, e.g. ‘Derwent Patents Citation Index’ and non-patent literature, e.g. Science Citation Index	An alternative method useful in identifying additional state-of-the-art or invalidating prior art
Collections	‘Collect’ prior art in a particular area of technology	Patents only. Often conducted within selected patent classifications	Useful for directing research or identifying gaps for patenting strategies
Patent Map	Show patent landscape to uncover trends, gaps or overlap in patent coverage and links between patents	Patents only	Useful for directing research or identifying gaps for patenting strategies
Scientific Business	Identify financial, organizational, statistical, commercial and other information for technology based organizations	Business, news and other sources	Supply of raw data and/or overall analysis

full window

full window

Bangalore Municipal Corporation Innovates cost effective urban road solutions

Bangalore City Municipal Corporation (BCC) is enthusiatic for its technical innovation in road construction technology, specifically used for development of underpass, surface pass and overpass. It is planning to secure patent protection for the same. It is going to file the patent for the Concrete Elements as product and erection of such structure as installation process.

The technical innovation also claims to reduce the cost of such constructions from INR 200 Mn to mere INR 10 Mn. Other municipal authorities from Chennai, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh and Mumbai have shown their interest in the promising technology.

BCC sees this as an opportunity to overtake Banglore Development Authority in Infrastructure development.

Marico Innovation Awards 2008

 Marico innovation foundation has announced winner for 2008. It has recived 146 nominations from business category and 64 for innnovation in Social Sector.

Y 2008 winners under various categories are given below.

CATEGORY	WINNERS
Process Innovation	Maharani Paints (India) Pvt Ltd	PDF
Product Innovation	Kirloskar Brothers Ltd.	PDF
	Motor Industries Co Ltd (MICO)	PDF
	Titan Industries Limited	PDF
Business Model Innovation	Evalueserve.com Pvt Ltd	PDF
	Su-Kam Power Systems Ltd	PDF
Social	M/S Bhinge Brothers	PDF
Specials	Azim Premji Foundation & Govts of Karnataka, MP, Gujarat, Uttrakhand, Rajasthan	PDF
	Tata Motors	For world cheapest car NANO

 

 

 

IIT Kharagpur organised technology Transfer Fest

On 5th and 6th April 2008, Technology Transfer Group, a student initiative of IIT Kharagpur has  organised exposition IndAc’08.  Thanks Dr. A.S.Rao of  INDIA INVENTS for this information.

There were 59 technologies ready for transfer from sectors

•  Foods & Beverages (13),
• Agricultural engineering & Farm machinery (5),
• Chemical (3),
• Medical devices & Biotechnology (23),
• CSE, Electronics & IT (7),
• Metallurgy & Materials (8).

 Food & Beverages

1. Production of Mango-milk based fruit bar
2. Process technology for manufacture of Dahi (Curd) Powder
3. Process to Manufacture Tomato Powder.
4. Mango soy Fortified Yoghurt Powder
5. Novel Technique for Manufacture of Instant Tea
6. Novel Functional Fruit Juices.
7. Lipase Mediated Synthesis of Acetates.
8. Lipase mediated synthesis of Vitamin C stearate
9. Production of Natural Coconut Water With High Storage Life
10. A Process for Continuous Production of Chhana
11. Jacketed Scrapped Surface Vessel for Kneading, Heating and Concentration of High Viscosity Liquids and Pastes
12. A device for cryogenically individually quick freezing of fish, marine products, meat, fruits and vegetables
13. A device for cryogenic grinding of spices, vegetables, food grains, plastic, and polymers.

Agricultural Engineering & Farm Machinery

1. Production of Biodiesel from Vegetable Oils
2. Self Sustaining Technology for Preservation of Betel Leaves
3. Mechanical Loading-Unloading System for a Withering Trough
4. Betel Leaf Oil Extractor
5. Preparation of Polysacchride-Blended Slow Release Urea
6. Passive-Passive Combination Tillage Implements for 2WD Tractors
7. Automated Organic Roof Garden
8. Membrane Based Water-Extraction of Polyphenols from Green Tea Leaves

 Chemical

1. Membrane Based Water-Extraction of Polyphenols from Green Tea Leaves.
2. Extraction of Natural Sweeteners from Stevia Leaves.
3. Production of Organic Fertilizer from Tannery Effluent.

Medical devices & Biotechnology

1. Anti-Hyperglycemic Polysaccharide from a Probiotic Bacterium
2. Bench-Scale Technology For Manufacture of Pro-Biotics
3. Herbal Skin Nourishing Gel and a Bio Process for Preparation of the Same Gel.
4. Air Bolus Projection Type Spot Thermoelectric Cooling
5. Palposcope
6. Robotic Male Vas Deferens Intraluminal Injection System
7. Heart Sound Analyzer
8. Portable infusion pump
9. A Knee Joint Simulator
10. Microneedle for Painless Blood Extraction or Drug DeliveryC
11. Strategic technological approach for exploitation of heterosis in cultivated rice through plant genetic engineering.
12. Second generation of insect resistant transgenic field crops against major lepidopteran pests.
13. Technique for generation of high tensile strength jute fiber through microbial retting process.
14. Generation of genetically modified oil-seed plants to yield altered composition of seed  
15. Technology for production of virus-free pure seeds of potato.
16. Strategic use of gene transfer technique for generation of marker-free and site-directed alien gene integration in plant genetic engineering of crop plants for improvement.
17. Smart-Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance (Smart-RISUG)
18. Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance (RISUG)
19. A Pumping System for increasing Pressure of Blood or a Fluid in a Controlled and Stepwise Mode.
20. Green Chemistry for recovery of Lead oxide from scraped storage Pb-bettery.
21. Foliate Tagged nano-particle for delivary of cancer drug  
22. Removal of mercury vapor from gases (natural gas, hydrogen gas, exhaust gas from power plant based on coal).  
23. Nano-composite of hydroxyapatite and chitosan derivative for bio-implants.
24. Magnetic nano-particle for cancer diagnostics.
25. Compact Disc (CD) based System for Bio-chemical and Bio-medical Analysis 

CSE, Electronics and IT

1. Realization of a Constant Phase Element and Its Performance Study in a Differentiator Circuit
2. See-Saw Bio-Reactor
3. E-Procurement
4. Online Integrated Materials Management System (OLIMMS)
5. Indian Language Speech Recognition
6. SYMBOLS Shakti - An object oriented hierarchical hybrid modeling, simulation and control analysis software
7. CNC software package for milling of 2-D contours
8. Micro Heat Pipe for Efficient Chip Cooling
9. Non-mechanical Valve that manipulates the Motion of a Micro-droplet Using Light
10. Traction Force Microscopy on Chip
11. Metallurgy & Materials
12. Biodegradation of Low-density polyethylene film
13. Polyimide Nylon Blend Film As a Substitute of Kapton
14. Processing a Single Phase c-ZrO2 Nanopowder from a Transparent Amorphous Ceramic Gel
15. Reclaimed Rubber by renewable resource material–>Disposable management
16. A Stable CrO2 Nanoparticle and A Process for Its Manufacture
17. A quick setting polymer composition and a method for the preparation of the same
18. A Process for production wear resistant cast iron by smelting reduction of waste products like red mud and de-silicated sand
19. An Highly Stable gamma-Al2O3 Mesoporous Structure and Its Process for Manufacture.

 

Indian Motorbike Major fights over Engine Patent

Yet to be launch motorbike sparked patent row among the two major Indian players. Bajaj auto’s “XCD” pronounced as Ex-cee-d’ has locked horns with another TVS’s “’s “Flame” on the patent of engine technology. Both the bikes would be competing each other other in same segment i.e. 125 cc engine bike market.

Bajaj auto’s accused TVS’s ” for infringing its patented Digital Twin Spark Swirl Injection “DTS-Si” technology for motorbike engines. Bajaj auto’s’s in house technology has already been adopted in some of its successful models Palsar, Avenger and Platina.

TVS’s ” veraciously denied the charges by stating that its technology “CCVTI” is completely different, from Bajaj auto’s. CCVTI engine has three valves unlike the Bajaj auto’s DTS-Si. It also stated that use of “twin spark” in four-stroke motorbike engine was first patented by Japanese auto major HONDA. It has developed this technology in collaboration with Austrian firm AVL, holding patent on use of three valves in internal combustion motorbike engines.

TVS’s ” & Bajaj auto’s has developed in-house R&D facilities to compete domestic and global motorbike players, in one of the fastest growing bike market, INDIA.

Bajaj auto’s had successfully refrained chinese bike maker to sell copy-cat verison of its bikes in sri-lanka and African countries.

Bajaj auto’s is waiting for launch of TVS’s “’s FLAME to initiate legal action, while TVS’s ” threaten to file INR 25 Bn defamation suit.

Intel faces trademark litigation on “Dual Core”

California-based ultramobile PC firm DualCor Technologies filed a suit accussing Intel of misappropriating the DualCor trademark.  DualCor applied for a trademark on its name in May 2004 and was granted the same by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in July 2006. read more on this from google news

Novartis’s challenge on validity of Indian patent laws was put down by Indian High Court

Swiss pharma giant, Novartis, faced another blow in India, when Chennai High Court rejected its writ petition challenging the validity of Indian Patent Laws.

Novartis had sought to declare Section 3 (d) of the Indian Patents Act as substituted by Patents (Amendment) Act (2005) as being “unconstitutional as it is vague, arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the constitution (right to equality).”  The section denies patent protection to the discovery of new form of known substance which does not result in enhancement of the known efficacy of that substance.

Novartis also rasied concerns over the discretion of patent authorities to define and determine the “enhancement of efficacy”. The Bench rejected the concerns by saying that the amended section cannot be invalidated solely on ground that there was a mere possibility of misuse of power.

Since Novartis’s 1993 patent effectively disclosed both the free base, imatinib, and the acid-addition salt, imatinib mesylate and the crystalline forms of imatinib mesylate. The crystalline forms of imatinib mesylate claimed in the application in question does not differ significantly in properties with respect to efficacy. In fact, with respect to efficacy, the current specification of Novartis itself admits that wherever β-crystals are used the imatinib free base or other salts can be used. The various forms of imatinib mesylate can, therefore, very well be considered the “same substance” under section 3(d) of the Patents Act.   view of IP practitioner Swarup Kumar

Novartis unlikely to challenge High court ruling in Indian Supreme Court. Novartis faced first setback  in January last year, when the Indian Patent Office rejected a patent application of its leukaemia drug Gleevec. It had filed appeal against the patent office decision to Intellectual Property Appellate Board and a writ petition in Chennai High Court.

Defending a patent infringement in court - take recourse of Reverse Doctrine of Equivalents

Doctrine of Equivalents was set forth by US Supreme Court in 1950 to extent the protection of patent rights to a good patent holders beyond the literal meaning of the claims i.e. literal infringement. US Supreme Court also established Function-Way-Result test with the objective to ensure the fundamental fairness to it to all.

Reverse of the doctrine is also hold good, i.e. if the claim elements did not Function is the same Way to accomplish the same Result then there would not be actual infringement under the doctrine.

Till date, neither US Supreme Court nor Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal had reversed a finding of non-infringement based on reverse doctrine of equivalence.

read more from ipfrontlines authored by Jay Sandvos

Indian Whisky Producers restrained to use “Scotch”

Scotch Whisky Association of UK has won a legal action in Delhi High Court to refrain Indian whisky manufacturers to use word “Scot” or Scotch”.

The association filed suit against Indian producer “Golden Bottling Ltd” under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999. India enacted it under WTO-TRIPS Agreement obligations.

GIs are IPRs attributed to the products of a particular place like Darjeeling Tea, Banarsi Saari, Champagne etc.

India 2nd best innovation facilitator places in the World

India emerged as the country with 2nd best conditions for innovation, after the US. UK ranked third and Japan at the fourth.

Japan has emerged as the world’s most innovative nation in terms of business practises, followed by Switzerland, US and Sweden. India has been ranked at 58th position, ahead of China’s 59th position in a ranking of 82 economies, based on their level of innovation during 2002-06. India fared marginally better on a study of innovation enablers (or the ability of a country to facilitate innovation), coming in at No. 50.

The Economic Intelligence Unit, The Economist, survyed 485 senior executives worldwide and analysed data collected between 2002 and 2006. 

A forecast by the agency for 2007-2011 expects China to improve its rank by five positions, while India is expected to move up by two. Hence, India will give away its lead over China as an innovative country in the next five years.

The top four will maintain their positions, according to the forecast, while China will move up five places to 54th and Mexico will climb six places to 39th.

Indian firms and brazilian AIDS patients to be benefit from compulsory licensing

The Brazilian government’s decision to override the patent rights of Merck’s HIV/AIDS drug Stocrin (efavirenz) and buy reverse engineered generic versions of the drug at low cost has come as a boon for Indian pharmaceutical companies manufacturing generic versions of efavirenz such as Cipla, Ranbaxy, Aurobindo Pharma and Strides Arcolab.

On Friday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced invoking the compulsory licensing provision for pharmaceuticals under the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) agreement on intellectual property - the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) - to buy copycat versions of efavirenz from laboratories certified by the World Health Organisation.

With over 200,000 registered cases, Brazil has the most AIDS patients in Latin America. Of them, only 75,000 patients are currently treated with efavirenz.

Welcoming the Brazilian government’s move, Amar Lulla, joint managing director of Cipla, said it was heartening to note that Brazil has invoked the compulsory licensing provision to treat its HIV/AIDS patients with affordable generic drugs.

“The compulsory licensing provision of the TRIPS help countries to protect the rights of its citizens. We welcome the Brazilian move,” he said.

Lulla confirmed that the Brazilian government was negotiating with Cipla for the supply of these medicines.

US pushes bill to promote competitive presence of generic drug manft.

The bipartisan Preserve Access to Affordable Generics Act (S. 316) would prohibit brand-name drug companies from exploiting a loophole in the Hatch-Waxman Act to pay generic drug companies to delay entry of new generic medicines into the market.

The bill brought by Senator Patrick Leahy, (D-Vt.), and supported by Senators Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), and Charles Schumer (D-NY).

The bill aims to end the trend of anti-competitive agreements between brand name pharmaceutical companies and generic companies to delay entry of affordable generics into the market.

Today, the law can’t stop the original patent holder from launching an “authorized generic” through a subsidiary or a third party. Sales of an authorized generic during the exclusivity period can cut the generic maker’s profits by 59 percent, according to research by Merrill Lynch analyst Greg Gilbert.

On the other hand Branded drug companies are lobbying with Bush administration to impose a new fees for the drug application filed by generic drug companies

Is infringment of patent in abroad liable to claim damages in the country…. ?

This is the question .. going to be decided by US SC in july 2007, while hearing Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., 05-1056 case.

In a long-running case between Microsoft and AT&T, AT&T had been able to secure favorable judgments from lower federal courts.

In this case, Microsoft has accepted the infringement of an AT&T patent in US but disputed the infringement of the patent in overseas markets.

The patent is related to technology that converts speech into computer code, so the speech can be transmitted electronically. It accused Microsoft Corp. of infringing the patent by including similar capabilities in its Windows software.

AT&T has cited the provision of US patent law, which restricts the export or infringed products from country. It says by incorporating the infringed technology in windows and selling it overseas Microsoft has violated the said provision and hence liable for the damages.

Microsoft, has pleaded that it is exporting only the “master copy” of the software and said feature has been added by computer  manufacturers in the foreign markets.

AT&T  protested the idea of “master version” of the software and argued that Microsoft has collected the royalty on the infringing software sold in the overseas markets, hence it is liable for the damages for the infringement in  overseas markets.

US Supreme Court is expected to deliver its judgment on the issues in july 2007.