The Hindu Business Line : Govt urged to sort out ambiguities in patents Bill

AS the new Government prepares to introduce the Patents Third Amendment Bill in Parliament - a report from the Peoples' Commission on Patent Laws has urged the Government to sort out ambiguities present in the Bill, in its present form.

Data exclusivity, a bone of contention in the pharma industry, "should not be allowed as there is no TRIPS obligation to do so," said a joint communiqué from the National Working Group on Patent Laws and the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. Both organisations are part of the People's Commission on Patent Laws.

Other points highlighted for review by the Government include pre-grant opposition, where People have the right to opposite a company's application for a patent.

"Pre-grant opposition of patents as available in the Patents Act 1970 should not be amended," the note said. Also, compulsory licensing should be strengthened keeping the TRIPS provision for grant of licence for commercial activity on reasonable commercial terms and conditions as provided in Article 31," they added.

Compulsory licensing allows companies the right to break the patent of an originator company, on the payment of a royalty to the innovator company. However, innovator companies have in the past expressed concerns over the low triggers that allow for a patent to be overrun in the domestic market. Governments also have the power to over-ride a patent in the event of a public health crisis, opening up another front on the definition of a public health problem.

The Patent Amendment Bill assumes significance against the backdrop that India is poised on the threshold of global trade commitments that demand that product patents be respected from January 2005.

The final amending Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2003, however, lapsed because of the last general elections. Organisations working in the sector are upset that the same Bill (circulated by the previous Government) is now been circulated to other Ministries for comments without any change by the new Government.

Other points of concern raised by the report include: Definition of `patentable invention'. It should be "for basic research and for pharmaceuticals in particular, patentability should be restricted to drug / medical molecules as recommended by the Mashelkar Committee", the note said.

Further, "frivolous patent claims" should be excluded, otherwise the volume of claims would be un-manageable and there would be chaos in the market place, they point out. A case in point is the US patent office that receives more than 1,000 applications a day and patent examiners are not able to do justice in examining the patent applications, the note said. "Life-form including micro-organisms should be specifically excluded from patentability as WTO has yet to complete its review," it added.