[Ip-health] Indian Express: ‘Plagiarism’ in his panel’s report, Mashelkar tells Govt to withdraw it

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   http://www.indianexpress.com/story/23941.html        New Delhi, February=
 21: R A Mashelkar, former Director General of the Council of Scientific an=
d Industrial Research (CSIR), has asked the government to =93withdraw=94 a =
report written by a panel he headed after a crucial paragraph on patent law=
 was found to have been copied ad verbatim from other sources, without any =
attribution.         Mashelkar, considered the force behind the the country=
=92s progress on intellectual property and patent issues, submitted this 56=
-page report on December 29 last year, his last day in office after a 30-ye=
ar-long illustrious tenure.         =93I am broken-hearted at being let dow=
n so badly,=94 an emotional Mashelkar told The Indian Express. =93This is t=
he first time such a thing has happened.=94 He said that a new report will =
be submitted in three months that will follow the =93best ethical practices=
.=94         =93Being a scientist, I am so fussy about attributions but in =
the rush of the last working day,
 a slip did happen and I deeply regret it,=94 he said. He said he offered h=
is =93unconditional apologies for the inconvenience that has been caused to=
 the Government=94 and that he took =93full responsibility for this unfortu=
nate development.=94         At the centre of the controversy is paragraph =
5.10 in Report of the Technical Expert Group on Patent Law issues, that was=
 meant to examine whether India=92s patent laws are compatible with the Agr=
eement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS).   The par=
agraph has been reproduced from a submission made to the committee by lawye=
r Shamnad Basheer, currently a Frank H. Marks Visiting Associate Professor =
in intellectual property law at the George Washington University Law School=
.         Basheer=92s submission has been passed off as the committee=92s c=
onclusion: =93It is important to distinguish =91ever-greening=92 from what =
is commonly referred to as =91incremental innovation=92. While =91ever-gree=
ning=92 refers to an extension of a patent
 monopoly, achieved by executing trivial and insignificant changes to an al=
ready existing patented product, =91incremental innovations=92 are sequenti=
al developments that build on the original patented product and may be of t=
remendous value in a country like India. Therefore, such incremental develo=
pments ought to be encouraged by the Indian patent regime.=94         This =
far-reaching interpretation has an important bearing on how patent laws are=
 interpreted in India, especially regarding the time-frame in which cheaper=
 generic drugs can be made available of the hugely expensive patented molec=
ules. As of now, drug companies routinely use =93incremental innovations=94=
 to extend their patent period indefinitely.         On February 19, Mashel=
kar wrote to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the parent body under w=
hich the group was constituted to examine whether India=92s patent laws are=
 compatible with the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Pro=
perty (TRIPS). According
 to the letter, a copy of which is with The Indian Express, Mashelkar admit=
ted that =93certain technical inaccuracies in the report that have inadvert=
ently crept while the initial drafts were attempted by a drafting sub-group=
 were unfortunately not detected in time and therefore not corrected.=94   =
      Basheer, when contacted, said that the committee=92s observations wer=
e indeed =93borrowed from my report=94 but he added that to call it =93plag=
iarism is incorrect.=94



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