http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21991179

Having read the article I'm glad they did reject it.

Swiss drug costs $2600 whereas Indian version only $175

Now I understand they need to make money for future research etc etc but I'm sorry this price difference just sounds like greed to me and would stop poorer people in India having treatment.

There's an argument this will actually improve innovation. Look at it this way - I'm a drug company and I have a drug that is still under patent. I also have a newer, slightly improved version of this drug in my labs. If 'evergreening' is allowed, it makes financial sense for me to hold back that newer version until the patent on the old version runs out, at which point I put the new version out and apply for a fresh patent thus protecting my income for the longest period possible.

if I know the patent is going to run out anyway, I might as well plough my research budget into new, better treatments which I can then get fresh patents on, rather than using it to protect my existing investment.

Sounds exactly like Edward Vogler in series 1 of House M.D.

Agreed - evergreening stops innovation. This ruling was a good thing.

I've not analysed any recent drug patents, but I do wonder who gets to decide whether a difference is trivial or non-trivial?

Many new drugs are found by applying very slight variations to existing ones. Some have radically altered effects. This has always been the case.

For example, the list of codeine and morphine related drugs is huge. Many vary by only a single group. Heterocodeine is the reverse isomer of codeine, so pretty damned similar, and yet it's 6 times more potent than morphine (patented in 1935).

Which were novel? All, none, or just the ones that are found to behave very differently? How differently?

Patenting a slightly improved drug doesn't mean you can't still use the old one more cheaply. It just means there's a slightly better one available at the higher price.

If the new drug is so much better than the old one that you would never consider taking the old one, then surely the new one is different enough to patent?

Of course it would be great if we had massive amounts of publicly funded open and honest research with each country motivated by the honour and pride of being world-leaders in the curing of disease...

Errrr.. the courts?

Evergreening is rife in the media industry as well, to keep old acts paying.

In this case the courts were right. Our patent system needs to be tightened up to exclude ever-greening drugs patents.

I thought the vast majority of patents were never challenged in court? And this case has lasted 6 years. Imagine if every drug release was delayed an additional 6 years and cost an additional millions of dollars in legal fees. The consequences are obviously atrocious.

There's an interesting flip-side to this I think. There are clearly very able pharmaceutical companies in India capable of manufacturing these complicated drugs. If the likes of Novartis maintain that "minor change" represents a new patentable medicine, then why don't other laboratories make similar "minor changes" and trial them? Novartis can then eat their own words if they object.

Could it be that trailing "minor change" actually represents expensive and worthwhile research which needs to be paid for?

Yes but some of that change is in the manufacturing process and would benefit any drug manufacture. It might not be patentable in its own right. This would be similar to much of the R&D in most companies and is set against overall corporate profits.