Company News: Novartis, Apple, Ikea, Tesla Motors

India’s Supreme Court denied Novartis’s request for patent protection for its Gleevec cancer treatment, allowing the nation’s generic drugmakers to continue selling low-cost copies. Big Pharma decried the ruling as an assault on intellectual property, while nonprofit groups praised it for expanding access to medicines. The court upheld a 2006 ruling that found the drug violated a provision of Indian law that prohibits so-called evergreening—when companies tweak a drug’s chemical makeup, without real medical benefit, to extend its patent life. Gleevec, used to treat a deadly blood cancer, was Novartis’s top global seller last year with sales of $4.7 billion.

The Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to let companies use social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to announce key information as long as investors are told where to look for the information. The SEC clarified the disclosure guidelines in a report of an investigation involving Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who posted monthly viewership numbers on his Facebook page in July, even though the company didn’t report the data in a public filing or press release. The SEC also said it will not take action against Hastings.