Centre working on a new IP policy

The BJP Government is working on a new policy on intellectual property to bring in more clarity in existing laws and promote “national interest”.

“It is important to spell out our policy on intellectual property with rigour. There are a number of overlaps and contradictions that have to be removed. It will not be restrictive, but (will) promote national interest,” Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, addressing a press conference here on Monday.

The Minister, however, did not clarify whether the concerns raised by the US and the EU on certain provisions of the Indian Patent Act, especially those related to avoid ‘ever-greening’ of patents, would be taken into account.

The US threatened to black-list India as a ‘priority foreign country’ (against which it could introduce economic sanctions), if its IP laws were found lacking in a unilateral review that it wants to carry out later this year.

The US and the EU both want India to do away with Section 3 (d) of the Indian Patent Act which states that inventions that are a mere discovery of a new form of a known substance and do not result in increased efficacy are not patentable. The Supreme Court rejected a patent claim by Swiss pharma giant Novartis for its cancer drug Glivec based on this section.

The EU also wants India to allow data exclusivity, which refers to exclusive rights of a company over the clinical data for its drugs, without actually holding a patent for it.

“The whole problem related to IPR in India is that while we have well established IPR laws, we do not have a policy in place spelling it out. That is why they (the US and the EU) are picking holes in it,” she said.

“The DIPP (Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion) will put up a consultation paper on its Website and would invite the comments of the public,” DIPP Secretary Amitabh Kant said.

On the issue of allowing FDI in multi-brand retail, Sitharaman said the BJP Government is categorically against it. However, she said that the Ministry does not feel the need to scrap the existing policy that permits 51 per cent foreign investment in the sector.

“There is no conflict in our minds. We are clear that we do want FDI in multi-brand retail. It is just that we do not see there is a need for us to come out with any notification specifying this as we are not sitting on applications,” Sitharaman said.

The Minister said that the Government’s policy on FDI in e-commerce was also the same. “We do not allow FDI in e-commerce as well as the policy is same as that for multi-brand retail,” she clarified.

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