Skip to main content

“Uncertain times for antibodies in India” by Archana Shanker and Nupur Maithani

In India, there are two core areas of the antibody patenting field that are unsettled and need correcting, as Archana Shanker and Nupur Maithani of Anand and Anand explain. 

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 the 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:

  • By the sequence of the complementarity-determining regions (CDRs);
  • Through their target protein;
  • By the target dependent/independent functional properties;
  • By deposition of cell lines;
  • By the sequence of the heavy chain and light chain variable regions;
  • By functional features (eg, binding to an epitope, dissociation constant); and
  • By the sequence of the epitope.

Read more: https://www.lifesciencesipreview.com/contributed-article/uncertain-times-for-antibodies-in-india

The article was first published in LSIPR.

Most Recent

News & Insights

VIEW ALL
News & Updates, Thought Leadership
Sep 11, 2026

Technology companies building in India are frequently told two contradictory things: that software cannot be patented in India, and that software patents

Software Patents in India Explained: What Can and Cannot Be Patented?
News & Updates, Thought Leadership
Sep 05, 2026

Written by: Dr. Ajai Garg and Siddhant Chamola As Artificial Intelligence has now emerged as a disruptive ecosystem reshaping Global economy,  India’s

India’s Pursuit for Global South AI Leadership through Agentic AI Systems: Navigating Intellectual Property Challenges
News & Updates, Thought Leadership
Sep 02, 2026

Author: Lakshmidevi Somanath The law currently provides creators exclusive rights over their creation for a limited time, which gives a human inventor

From Innovation Incentives to Technology Diffusion – Protection of Intellectual Property Created by Agentic Artificial Intelligence
News & Updates, Thought Leadership
Aug 30, 2026

I. The Infringer’s Privacy Paradox The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (“DPDP Act”) is built around a clear rule. Personal data

The DPDP Act’s Unanswered Question: Can Privacy Law Block a Software Piracy Investigation?