Topic started by Indian (@ hor186103.uea.ac.uk) on Fri Aug 16 09:56:44 .
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April 1995 reported a Presidential proclamation to implement Articles 70(8) and 70(9) of GATT-TRIPS to provide means for filing of patent applications relating to pharmaceuticals and agrichemical products in the period prior to the date on which India becomes obligated to provide protection for these types of inventions under GATT-TRIPS. The decree was issued at a time when Parliament was not in session. Under the Indian Constitution, for the decree to remain in effect ratification by Parliament is required within sixty days of its coming into session.
Unfortunately, such ratification did not occur. The Indian Patent Office has, however, continued to act as if the decree were in force, apparently in the expectation that the position will ultimately be regularized.
In the meantime, the United States commenced proceedings against India in the World Trade Organization for failure to implement properly the relevant provisions of GATT-TRIPS. On September 5, 1997, the panel appointed by the WTO to investigate the position gave a ruling in favor of the United States on the ground that India has not provided a legally secure method for dealing with pharmaceutical and agrichemical inventions in the period before which it was required to give full patent protection for them. India has announced that it will appeal against the decision, which if upheld would give the United States the right to impose sanctions against India for failure to comply with its treaty obligations.
Because of its infrastructure, India is in a unique position to help in worldwide access to medications. It can manufacture drugs probably cheaper than any place in the world. It has pharmaceutical companies, laboratories, well- trained physicians, scientists, industry, transportation, and so forth, and has many economic and political relationships with developing countries.
India's ability to produce cheap medicines for the world is the result of its refusal historically to accept product patents on pharmaceuticals. The Indian government does recognize patents on the *process* of manufacturing a drug, but felt that the end result, the drug itself, should never be restricted by a patent. In the Indian system, if a company can find a way to make a protease inhibitor by a different method, there is no reason they cannot have a patent for that version of it.
This policy creates lots of competition around every drug in India, and in the development of manufacturing methods, and the consequence is that prices are enormously cheap. But unfortunately, under the terms of the GATT treaty, India has only a few years to change its patent system to recognize product patents; and in the interim, it has to give monopoly marketing rights to certain patented drugs. So the ability to keep drugs cheap by not patenting the end product, but rather the process, is going to be taken away from India.
Do you think Corporate competetion and Patent Rights is going to kill many Indians ? If so, What is the solution ?
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