A technical case going through the Supreme Court in India is being carefully watched by aid agencies and other human rights organisations, who claim it could have severe consequences for the supply of lifesaving drugs to the developing world...Novartis is seeking patent protection for its leukaemia drug Glivec...It is challenging India’s interpretation of a section of the nation’s patent law — Section 3(d) — which prevents ‘evergreening’. India is literally the lifeline of patients in the developing world, especially in the poorest parts of Africa…If Sec. 3(d) is overturned, it means any meaningful effort to make these vital medicines available will be put in jeopardy...as other pharmaceutical companies [seek] to extend the patents for drugs used to treat diseases such as HIV/AIDS and TB .It is an argument that Novartis wholeheartedly rejects. ‘Currently available generic drugs launched in India before 2005...will continue to be available under the transition clause in the Indian patent law regardless of the legal outcome of our case,’ it says...