Specialised Services

IP Related Regulatory

The life sciences industry in general and the ones using natural resources in particular are required to secure several approvals/permissions to be able to use national biological resources including microbes, which need to be deposited in accordance with the national and international laws, to comply with the “enablement” requirement of a patent specification. These approvals and submissions must be planned ahead so that at the time of the grant of the patent application is unhindered. In this, we assist in following:

Prior Art Searches

Samkhya subscribes to several paid databases to make searches based on keywords, classifications, sequence and chemical structure as the case may be. Samkhya provides detailed opinions/consultations on patentability, invalidity studies, freedom to operate studies as well as landscape through their exhaustive searches mixed with expertise in the life sciences. The prior art searches and analysis covers:

Patent Drafting

Patent drafting is the crucial aspect of building a formidable portfolio and excellently drafted patent specifications can build or break any potential investors’ confidence in an early stage to mid-stage startups in life sciences industry. Samkhya adopts a universal approach to patent specification drafting thus specification being compatible for pursuing range of claims across several jurisdictions. Further, we optimize the claiming embodiments/aspects in order to not exceed or write more than 15-20 claims to save on excess claim and page fees in several countries. A patent specification must be drafted while keeping in mind that the life of patent is 20 years, and especially in life sciences, a molecule or formulation may last upto 20 years and thus securing several embodiments becomes paramount to prevent work/design around the patent claims.

Patent Prosecution

While patent prosecution for a patent drafted by Samkhya is smooth but if we are to take charge of an existing portfolio, we devote a great deal of time in understanding business of our clients as well as their product strategy. Samkhya, as a rule, pursues original claims until a close prior art is cited, and even in that if the closest prior arts pose challenge to inventive step, Samkhya’s policy is to build a strong technical/legal argument than simply amending claims with narrowed down scope of protection, which should be the last resort.

We believe in conducting examiner interviews early in the stage of prosecution especially in US and Europe to reduce the number of office actions to 1 or 2.

Litigation & Enforcement

Samkhya provides support to litigation via specialized prior art searches and analysis together with expertise in research appropriate case laws to enable building a solid legal argument to help our clients.