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Unit 8: Legal Environment
asked to provide one. The government introduced a Competition Bill which is more suitable in Notes
a changed scenario.
Task In your daily routine life, what offenses to the MRTP Act do you see? Have
you ever taken any action against them?
8.2 Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
In India, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) fall under item 49 of list - the union list of the 7th
Schedule to the Constitution. The items read - patents, inventions and designs; copyright;
trademark; and merchandise marks. Patent are thus is a Union subject. Patent protection was
first introduced in 18th century. Formal patent protection in Indian was introduced by Patent
Act, 1911.
A patent is a grant of property rights by the government to an inventor. Patents are exclusive
property rights that can be sold, transferred, willed, licensed or used as collateral, much like
other valuable assets. In fact, most independent inventors do not commercialize their inventions
or create new products from their ideas. Instead, they sell or license their patents to others who
have the resources to develop products and commercial markets.
Patent law stipulate broad categories of what can and cannot be patented and in the words of the
statute, any person who "invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture,
composition or matter or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent."
8.2.1 New Patent Law [Patent (Amendment) Ordinance, 2005]
India has allowed its pharmaceuticals makers to copy drugs patented abroad since the early
1970s as long as they use different manufacturing processes. This helped a few drugs companies
like Ranbaxy, Cipla, Kopran, etc., to rise into global challenges and made medications cheaper
for the poorer masses who often need them. Most multinationals such as Glaxo-Smithkline Plc,
Pfizer Inc., Novartis AG and Aventis, who have been forced to watch Indian firms eat into their
market share, await the new environment with cautious optimism.
But following January 2005 and with the amendment of Indian Patent Act, 1970 through a
midnight ordinance on December 31, 2004, India entered in a new phase of product patents.
Companies around the world have filed applications for one million international patents since
the system began in 1978, the UN agency for intellectual property said. The US currently
dominates patents applications filing with 205,286 applications since 2000; Japan is in second
place with 70,513, followed by Britain with 25,916 and France with 24,278.
Example: According to WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) among
individual corporations, Dutch manufacturer Philips Electronics NV is leading the way with
9,778 applications filed between 1995 and 2003. Siemens AG of Germany is in second place with
8,981, followed by Robert Bosch GmbH with 6,069 and P&G Co of the US with 5,841.
For a flat fee of 1,400 Swiss francs ($1,100) companies can file a request for patent protection in
any of the 124 countries that have signed up to the system. WIPO registers the applications,
publishes them and carries out an examination to determine whether the product or process
applied for appears to be new. Alternative is to go to every country individually and apply for
patent protection. (The Economic Times, 16 January)
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