[Ip-health] Science: Indian Government Hopes Bill Will Stimulate Innovation

[Matt Price]

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5863/556a

Science 1 February 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5863, p. 556
DOI: 10.1126/science.319.5863.556a

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY:
Indian Government Hopes Bill Will Stimulate Innovation
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

The Indian government is preparing to introduce legislation that it
hopes will reverse the traditional hands-off attitude at most Indian
universities toward commercializing the results of basic research. The
proposed bill, a draft of which was obtained by Science, sets out
rules that institutions must follow once their scientists make a
patentable discovery. In addition to serving as the first such
nationwide guidelines, the legislation is meant to send a message to
university officials that technology transfer is part of their job.

"The idea is to create an environment of innovation," says Maharaj
Kishan Bhan, secretary of the Department of Biotechnology, which
helped to draft the bill. Until now, he says, "university
administrators [have been] free to encourage or discourage patenting
and commercialization efforts. And there are many who believe that
industry and academia should be kept miles apart."

The legislation directs institutions to report patentable discoveries
to the funding agency as soon as they come to light and to file patent
applications within a year. Institutions and inventors who fail to
meet the deadline would forfeit their intellectual-property rights to
the agency that funded the research. Institutions must give inventors
at least 30% of any revenues from a patent and spend the rest on
research.

Those rules might have helped biochemist Manju Ray after she developed
an experimental drug based on the anticancer properties of
methylglyoxal--a metabolic byproduct found in most organisms,
including humans. She works at the Indian Association for the
Cultivation of Science (IACS) in Kolkata, which took no steps to
patent the compound. Finally, Ray agreed to partner with Dabur India
Ltd., an Indian pharmaceutical company, making it co-owner of domestic
and international patents granted in 2003. But Dabur has since lost
interest in the therapy and has been pursuing other candidate drugs.
Ray cannot license it to another company without Dabur's approval, and
IACS has no financial incentive or authority to get involved.

Somenath Ghosh, head of the National Research Development Corp. in New
Delhi, which markets technologies developed through public-funded
research, expects the bill to pave the way for more governmental
support to labs and universities to help with patent filings. But
Ghosh and other analysts also wonder whether the government has the
resources to carry out its threat to claim patentable discoveries if
institutions drag their feet.

Even without the bill, the culture at institutions may be changing.
Last year, Ray's institute set up a technology-transfer office, which
helped Ray file a patent application for a new formulation of her
cancer drug. If she receives the patent, she will be able to explore
partnerships with other pharmaceutical companies. "I want to forget
about the past and look to the future," she says.

The government plans to introduce the bill this spring in Parliament,
where it is expected to win swift passage.