The enactment of the Indian Patents Act (IPA), 1970 was a revolutionary step taken by the then Government with Late Smt. Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister of the country.
WTO, GATS and The Indian Patents Act, 1970 with Amendments
The enactment of the
Indian Patents Act (IPA), 1970 was a revolutionary step taken by the then
Government with Late Smt. Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister of the country.
This Act was aimed at giving an impetus to the industrial and economic growth
within the country by adopting process-patent strategy. The effective
implemtation of this Act between 1970 and establishment of World Trade
Organization (WTO) in 1995 yielded desired results of increased production of
different commodities by Indian industrial sector especially, in the field of
drugs and pharmaceuticals. Before the enactment of IPA, 1970, the Indian
pharmaceutical industry was largely depending upon import of drugs and
technology and indigenous pharmaceutical sector was not in a position to
compete mighty foreign companies established long back in the country. The
provision of process-patent, and not the product-patent, provided in the Act
was one ofthe important landmarks in enhancing the bulk drug production in the
country.
India's
strengths of trained manpower and knowledge base, good net work of research
laboratories, well developed base industries, rich biodiversity, research
access to vast and diverse disease populations, access to intellectual NRIs and
strong agriculture base were effectively used all these years, with the legal
backing of IPA, 1970 to boost production of drugs and pharmaceuticals within
the country. The pharmaceutical industry in 2004 ranked fourth in the world in
terms of volume (8%) of drug production. It however, occupied thirteenth
position in the world in terms of value (around one percent) mainly, because of
low cost of medicines in the country. The mandate for the Indian companies is
to serve the cause of providing good quality, cheap and affordable drugs to the
poor strata of the society.
The Committee
constituted by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) under the
Chairmanship of Mr. Arthur Dunkel, the then Director-General of GATT came out
with a draft report - "Dunkel Draft" - after deliberations amongst
member countries of GATT for more than five years. The draft was finally
approved by participating countries which ultimately, culminated in
establishment of World Trade Organization (WTO) on 1-1-1995, the International
Agency to act as watch-dog for implementation of the policies of TRIPS (Trade
Related Intellectual Property Rights) and TRIM (Trade Related Investment
Measures). The new patent regime pertaining to Intellectual Property has come
into force from 1-1-1995 and India with some other countries, whose Intellectual
Property legislations were not in agreement with provisions of TRIPS of WTO
were given grace period of 10 years for implementation. To comply with the
requirements of WTO, first amendment to the Act was effected in 1999, followed
by another in 2003. Finally, the Govt. oPndia promulgated the Patent
(Amendment) Ordinance which came into force w.e.f. lSI January, 2005. The
Patents Rules 2003 were also modified appropriately which also came in force
from 1-1-2005.
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