In This Issue:

- Head in the Cloud? Achieving Savings While Managing Risks in the United States

- Country Risk: Illustrated

- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Issues Outsourcing Guidance

Excerpt from Country Risk: Illustrated

Last time, we wrote about “country risk”; i.e., the risk a company takes by doing business in a different country, where laws might be different from what you might expect in your home country.

Since then, a case has been decided in Mumbai, India before the Controller of Patents that illustrates the need to take country risk into account when selecting offshore locations.

In the matter of Natco Pharma Limited (Natco) and Bayer Corporation (Bayer), Natco applied for and was granted a compulsory license under Section 84(i) of the Patents Act, 1970. Under the patent law in India, a compulsory license is an involuntary contract between a willing buyer and an unwilling seller imposed and enforced by the State – essentially the government permits someone else to produce the patented product without the consent of the patent holder.