[Ip-health] Times of India: Pharma interests well protected: Nath

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2005 06:56:46 AM ]

NEW DELHI: Commerce minister Kamal Nath told the Rajya Sabha that the
government would amend the Patents Amendment Bill to insert more
safeguards if the expert committee recommended so.

Defending the Bill, Kamal Nath had said adequate safeguards have been
provided in it to protect the interests of the Indian pharma industry
and the underprivileged.

In compliance with India's WTO obligations, the Patents (Amendment)
Bill, 2005, introduces product patents in pharmaceuticals, food and
agro-chemicals =97 the three sectors where the process could be patented
but the product did not get patent protection

Under the trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs) agreement
of the WTO, India was obliged to provide product patents in these three
sectors with effect from January 1, 2005. The UPA government met the
deadline by promulgating an Ordinance in December 2004. The Bill now
seeks to replace the Ordinance.

To carry its Left allies with it, the government agreed to 10 of the 12
changes proposed by them in the Ordiance and the changes were moved as
official amendments to the BIll. The acceptance of the suggestions from
the Left parties provided them a face-saver, enabling them to vote in
favour of any patent law amendment for the first time. But the changes
agreed to were not substantial. They were more in the nature of
clarifications and amplifications of some of the existing provisions.

The Left had been opposed to India changing its law to provide for
product patents in key areas like medicines and farm inputs. It feared
that it would create MNC monopoly, lead to higher medicine prices and
take essential drugs from out of the common man's reach.