ECONOMIC

ENVORINMENT OF
BUISNESS
TERM PAPER
ON

TRADE REALTED INTELLECTUAL

PROPERTY RIGHTS (TRIPS)

SUBMITTED TO :
DR. MEGHA CHANDIOK

ON
4.11.2008

BY :
GROUP 3
PRANAY SHARMA (36/08)
ANJU BALA AHUJA (48/08)
INDERDEEP KAUR (56/08)
NIPUN TRIKHA (58/08)
ANKITDEEP SINGH (82/08)
ABHISKEHK CHANANA (138/08)

pg. 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS pg no

1. INTRODUCTION 3
2. INTRODUCTION TO TRIPs 4
3. FEATURES 6
3.1 Non-discrimination
3.2 Duration of iprs
3.3 Scope of iprs
3.4 Licensing
3.5 Transition period for ldcs
3.6 Enforcement mechanism
4. NECESSITY 8
4.1 Protection
4.2 New situations and problems
4.3 US interest
4.4 Benefits to developed nations
4.5 Cost of r&d
5. DIFFERENT IPRs 9
5.1 Copyrights and Related rights
5.2 Trademarks
5.3 Geographical indications
5.4 Industrial designs
5.5 Patents
Issues and doha rounds of talks on public health
5.6 Layout-designs of integrated circuits
5.7 Protection of undisclosed information
5.8 Control of anti-competitive practices in
contractual licenses
6. IMPACT OR TRIPs ON INDIAN SECTORS 13
6.1 Software sector
6.2 Pharmaceutical sector
I. Indian patent law 1970
II. TRIPS and public health
6.3 Agricultural sector
6.4 Traditional knowledge and bio diversity
I. Reasons
II. Negotiations

7. CONCLUSION 19
8. ENFORCEMENT 19
9. RECENT DISPUTES 20
10.CRITICISMS 21
11. BIBLIOGRAPHY &WEBSITES 22

pg. 2
INTRODUCTION
Ideas and knowledge are an increasingly important part of trade. Most of the
value of new medicines and other high technology products lies in the
amount of invention, innovation, research, design and testing involved.
Films, music recordings, books, computer software and on-line services are
bought and sold because of the information and creativity they contain, not
usually because of the plastic, metal or paper used to make them. Many
products that used to be traded as low-technology goods or commodities
now contain a higher proportion of invention and design in their value — for
example brand named clothing or new varieties of plants.
Creators can be given the right to prevent others from using their inventions,
designs or other creations — and to use that right to negotiate payment in
return for others using them. These are “intellectual property rights”. They
take a number of forms. For example books, paintings and films come under
copyright; inventions can be patented; brandnames and product logos can be
registered as trademarks; and so on. Governments and parliaments have
given creators these rights as an incentive to produce ideas that will benefit
society as a whole.

Intellectual Property is a term that under its umbrella covers

exclusive rights that are conferred upon a person regarding the
production of the material in same or other form of
representation .It includes patents, copyright laws, trade
marks nindustrial design rights and trade secrets

The concept of intellectual property seeks to divorce the idea itself, which is
treated as freely shareable, from the expression of the idea, the design or
process, which becomes property. As the design or process becomes
increasingly abstract, it becomes harder to distinguish it from the idea
behind it. The difficulty in making this distinction is a serious dilemma that
patent offices worldwide are having to increasingly grapple with, a problem
that is becoming more serious as marketable products become more abstract
in an information age.

pg. 3
INTRODUCTION TO TRIPs

Background
The extent of protection and enforcement of these rights varied widely
around the world; and as intellectual property became more important in
trade, these differences became a source of tension in international economic
relations. Certain agreements on IP rights already existed before the WTO
was created:
• the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property
1883(patents, industrial designs, etc)
• the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic
Works 1886 (copyright).

However certain problems were perceived in these agreements like:

1. Some standards were weak and vaguely specified.

2. There were no effective procedures to settle disputes and hence were
only statements of intentions on part of signatories.
3. They were not flexible enough to handle new technologies.

TRIPS
In Uraguay rounds (1987) TRIPS were included for the first time in WTO
with US being the prime mover. Brazil and India were leading the
opposition from the side of developing nations. Developed nations argued
that entrepreneurship and innovation could never be encouraged without
proper protection of intellectual property rights, while Developing nations
contended that the rights of the patent-holder or inventor would need to be
circumscribed by his/ her obligations to the rest of society and the world at
large.

TRIPS Agreement : It establishes minimum levels of protection that each

government has to give to the intellectual property of fellow WTO members.
It should provide these protections in the form of enforceable private
property rights. In doing so, it strikes a balance between the long term
benefits and possible short term costs to society. These costs occur because
the market and the society are deprived of the benefits it can derive out of
new free transfer of new technology. Society benefits in the long term when

pg. 4
intellectual property protection encourages creation and invention, especially
when the period of protection expires and the creations and inventions enter
the public domain. Governments are allowed to reduce any short term costs
through various exceptions, for example to tackle public health problems.
And, when there are trade disputes over intellectual property rights, the
WTO’s dispute settlement system is now available.

Basic principles:
• national treatment: treating one’s own nationals and foreigners
equally),
• most-favoured-nation treatment (equal treatment for nationals of all
trading partners in the WTO
• Balanced protection : intellectual property protection should
contribute to technical innovation and the transfer of technology.
Both producers and users should benefit, and economic and social
welfare should be enhanced.

pg. 5
The main features of the Agreement are:
1. Nondiscrimination. It signifies that Member states must not favor the
intellectual property rights of their own citizens against the intellectual
property rights of citizens of other GATT members, and they must not favor
the rights of citizens of one member country over those of another.

2. Standards: In respect of each of the main areas of intellectual property

covered by the TRIPS Agreement, the Agreement sets out the minimum
standards of protection to be provided by each Member. Each of the main
elements of protection is defined, namely the subject-matter to be protected,
the rights to be conferred and permissible exceptions to those rights, and the
minimum duration of protection.

3. Enforcement: This set of provisions deals with domestic procedures and

remedies for the enforcement of intellectual property rights. The Agreement
lays down certain general principles applicable to all IPR enforcement
procedures.

4.Dispute settlement: The Agreement makes disputes between WTO

Members about the respect of the TRIPS obligations subject to the WTO's
dispute settlement procedures.

5. Duration of intellectual property rights- The duration of a patent under

TRIPS has been standardized to a minimum of twenty years from the date of
filing; copyrights are standardized at fifty years on sound recordings and at
least fifty years on motion pictures and other works. Trademark protection is
established for seven years and is indefinitely renewable as long as the
trademark is in use.

6. Scope of intellectual property rights- TRIPS expands the existing scope of

protection for trade secrets, computer programs, and databases. In the case
of pharmaceuticals, although TRIPS extends the scope of what is patentable,
it excludes natural or artificially produced biological material, animals, and
plant varieties. TRIPS also confers on patentees the following exclusive
rights: the ability to prevent third parties from the acts of producing,
distributing, selling, or importing a patented product; the exclusion of third
parties from using, selling, and importing a patented process; full protection
of the product obtained through the patented process; and the flexibility to
sell or license patent rights.

pg. 6
7. Licensing: This is an area where international disputes are common.
TRIPS has failed to resolve the sources of conflict because it allows nations
to grant compulsory licenses for "adequate remuneration" after considering
each case "on its individual merits" and after attempting to negotiate
"reasonable commercial terms" with holders of intellectual property rights.
TRIPS specifies that compulsory licenses must be nonexclusive and of
limited duration.

8. Transition periods for less-developed countries. TRIPS allows developing

countries grace period till 2016 to extend intellectual property rights to
categories of inventions that were previously unprotected. The TRIPS
provisions do not require "pipeline" or retroactive protection for inventions
that are covered under the new proposed laws but were not protected under
the old laws.

9. Enforcement mechanisms. The TRIPS agreement attempts to cure the

problems in international market transactions of high-technology goods and
services. It also provides benefits to those developing countries that have
had limited access to high technologies because of their lack of
technological capabilities. By providing clear and enforceable rules plus
dispute settlement mechanisms through the WTO framework, TRIPS
promotes the institutional capacity of developing nations to absorb complex
technologies. In short, TRIPS is a source of international legal convergence.

pg. 7
NECESSITY FOR TRIP’s
There are several reasons for the emergence of TRIPS. They are-

1. To be successful, a nation has to have an adequate protective mechanism

to protect such types of rights of a creator or a generator of information.

2. The application of new technologies has given rise to a number of new

situations and problems, particularly in the field of information technologies
and biotechnology which marks the basic necessity for such an agreement as
TRIPS.

3. US leadership in manufacturing and technology was challenged by the

catching up of Japan and a few other countries, including Newly
Industrialised Countries (NICs). These challenges were perceived in the
United States as resulting from too open a technological and scientific
system which allowed other countries to imitate US innovations and which
gave rise to the proliferation of counterfeiting and piracy. Also, developed
countries were also pressing for a more open world trading system which
would open up markets for their R&D intensive exports in particular.

4. For developed countries, the combination of strengthened IPRs and open

global markets would provide scope for them to choose to trade rather than
to diffuse their technology.

5. There was also a strong interest on the part of industrialized countries in a

more robust and forceful IPRs system in order to help their enterprises
recoup the costs of their R&D efforts.

pg. 8
 DIFFERENT IPRs
TRIPS agreement includes the following intellectual property rights (IPRs):

1. Copyright and Related rights

2. Trademarks
3. Geographical indications
4. Industrial designs
5. Patents
6. Layout-designs of integrated circuits
7. Protection of undisclosed information

5.1 Copyright and Related rights

1. Article 9.2 confirms that copyright protection shall extend to
expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or
mathematical concepts as such.
2. Article 10.1 provides that computer programs, whether in source or
object code, shall be protected as literary work
3. It also expands international copyright rules to cover rental rights.
Authors of computer programs and producers of sound recordings and
films must have the right to prohibit the commercial rental of their
works to the publicThe agreement says performers must also have the
right to prevent unauthorized recording, reproduction and broadcast of
live performances (bootlegging) for no less than 50 years. Producers
of sound recordings must have the right to prevent the unauthorized
reproduction of recordings for a period of 50 years

5.2 Trademarks
1. The basic rule contained in Article 15 is that any sign, or any combination
of signs, capable of distinguishing the goods and services of one undertaking
from those of other undertakings, must be eligible for registration as a
trademark, provided that it is visually perceptible.

2. The Agreement requires service marks to be protected in the same way as

marks distinguishing goods. . Marks that have become well-known in a
particular country enjoy additional protection.

pg. 9
3. The owner of a registered trademark must be granted the exclusive right
to prevent all third parties not having the owner's consent from using in the
course of trade identical or similar signs for goods or services.

4.Initial registration, and each renewal of registration, of a trademark shall

be for a term of not less than seven years. The registration of a trademark
shall be renewable indefinitely (Article 18).

5.3 Geographical indications

A place name is sometimes used to identify a product. This “geographical
indication” does not only say where the product was made. More
importantly, it identifies the product’s special characteristics, which are the
result of the product’s origins.Well-known examples include “Champagne”,
“Scotch”, “Tequila”, and “Roquefort” cheese.

Wine and spirits makers are particularly concerned about the use of place-
names to identify products, and the TRIPS Agreement contains special
provisions for these products. But the issue is also important for other types
of goods.

5.4 Industrial designs

Article 25.1 of the TRIPS Agreement obliges Members to provide for the
protection of independently created industrial designs that are new or
original. Members may provide that designs are not new or original if they
do not significantly differ from known designs or combinations of known
design features.

Under the TRIPS Agreement, industrial designs must be protected for at

least 10 years. Owners of protected designs must be able to prevent the
manufacture, sale or importation of articles bearing or embodying a design
which is a copy of the protected design.

5.5 Patents
Patents must be available for any inventions, whether products or processes,
in all fields of technology without discrimination, subject to the normal tests
of novelty, inventiveness and industrial applicability. They are issued for a
period of 20 years.

pg. 10
The exclusive rights includes right to make, use, sell. Imported products
enjoy same rights in any other country.

Process patents will also apply to products directly received from the
process. An applicant for a patent shall disclose the invention in a manner
sufficiently clear and complete for the invention to be carried out by a
person skilled in the art.

EXCEPTIONS:
1. Governments can refuse to issue a patent for an invention if its
commercial exploitation is prohibited for reasons of public order or
morality. They can also exclude diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical
methods, plants and animals (other than microorganisms), and
biological processes for the production of plants or animals (other
than microbiological processes).Plant varieties, however, must be
protectable by patents or by a special system.
2. A patent owner could abuse his rights, for example by failing to
supply the product on the market. To deal with that possibility, the
agreement says governments can issue “compulsory licences”,
allowing a competitor to produce the product or use the process under
licence. But this can only be done under certain conditions aimed at
safeguarding the legitimate interests of the patent-holder.

ISSUES
An issue that has arisen recently is how to ensure patent protection for
pharmaceutical products does not prevent people in poor countries from
having access to medicines — while at the same time maintaining the patent
system’s role in providing incentives for research and development into new
medicines. Flexibilities such as compulsory licensing are written into the
TRIPS Agreement, but some governments were unsure of how these would
be interpreted, and how far their right to use them would be respected.

DOHA ROUNDS OF TALKS ON PUBLIC HEALTH.

A large part of this was settled when WTO ministers issued a special
declaration at the Doha Ministerial Conference in November 2001. They
agreed that the TRIPS Agreement does not and should not prevent members
from taking measures to protect public health. They underscored countries’

pg. 11
 ability to use the flexibilities that are built into the TRIPS Agreement. And
they agreed to extend exemptions on pharmaceutical patent protection for
least-developed countries until 2016. On one remaining question, they
assigned further work to the TRIPS Council — to sort out how to provide
extra flexibility, so that countries unable to produce pharmaceuticals
domestically can import patented drugs made under compulsory licensing. A
waiver providing this flexibility was agreed on 30 August 2003.

5.6 Layout-designs of integrated circuits

The basis for protecting integrated circuit designs (“topographies”) in the
TRIPS agreement is the Washington Treaty on Intellectual Property in
Respect of Integrated Circuits, which comes under the World Intellectual
Property Organization. This was adopted in 1989 but has not yet entered into
force. The TRIPS agreement adds a number of provisions: for example,
protection must be available for at least 10 years.

5.7Protection of undisclosed information

Trade secrets and other types of “undisclosed information” which have
commercial value must be protected against breach of confidence and other
acts contrary to honest commercial practices. But reasonable steps must have
been taken to keep the information secret. Test data submitted to
governments in order to obtain marketing approval for new pharmaceutical
or agricultural chemicals must also be protected against unfair commercial
use.

Control of anti-competitive practices in contractual licences

Trade secrets and other types of “undisclosed information” which have
commercial value must be protected against breach of confidence and other
acts contrary to honest commercial practices. But reasonable steps must have
been taken to keep the information secret. Test data submitted to
governments in order to obtain marketing approval for new pharmaceutical
or agricultural chemicals must also be protected against unfair commercial
use.

pg. 12
 IMPACT OF TRIPs ON India

6.1 SOFTWARE SECTOR

WTO agreement on TRIPS has wide-ranging implications on the Indian
software sector. They are-

1 Education- NASSCOM-McKinsey report indicates apart from other

infrastructural requirements, manpower requirement to be about 250 000
skilled professionals per year. The existing availability of professionals,
including engineers from IITs and RECs, is about 70 000 to 80 000. This
figure includes the output from private computer training institutes. When
stricter copyright laws are enforced, these private institutes will be
compelled to use licensed software. This would automatically result in the
increase in the fees charged, thereby causing an adverse impact on the
number of persons opting for these courses, which would in turn affect the
availability of trained professionals.

2 Impact on the Development of software-There are several free software

that are available in the market. Currently, these are being used by users all
over the world, including India, without any license/access fees. Hence, by
having such ‘Open’ software, people will have the opportunity to explore
and improve the functioning of software. This not only improves the quality
of software continually, but also spares developing countries like India of a
financial burden.

3 Impact on exports-Barely one-tenth of the computer software produced

in India is actually registered and credited to this country on account of
inadequate protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs). Whereas India's
share of world trade in information technology (IT) and computer software
is officially placed at less than one per cent - 0.72 per cent - it is estimated
that as much as eight per cent of international production of software is
actually being created in India. In other words, barely one-tenth of the
software that comes out of India gets formally registered and shows up in
government statistics.

pg. 13
 4 Impact on electronic commerce It is important that each country have in
place a framework of intellectual property laws and regulations, and a
supporting infrastructure of intellectual property services, to reassure
intellectual property owners and commercial enterprises that their assets will
be protected in an online environment. Existence of such a legal
infrastructure offers three distinct advantages:

• Encourage Private Sector Investment

• Accelerate Economic Development
• Provide A Secure Foundation

6.2 PHARMACEUTICAL SECTOR

In pharmaceutical industry, Stronger universal patents because of the
exclusive rights effectively rules out competition and ensures the monopoly
power of the patent holder throughout the period of protection. The impact
of product patents on the pharmaceutical industry in India has centered on
the issues of price of the patented product and their accessibility. Due to
patented drugs, local manufacturers cannot produce the drugs locally, hence
a very high price may be charged from the consumers for a life saving drug,
then there is also a possibility of accessibility as an expensive drug will be
stored by a few chemists leading to shortage in certain areas.

INDIA HAS INDIAN PATENT LAW 1970. It did not provided product
patents for pharmaceuticals, instead it provided production processes that
may be patented for seven years. In addition, the law allowed for
compulsory licences granted by the state, in the case of a patent holder's not
granting voluntary licences on fair conditions. India profited from a large
section of well-qualified experts who made good use of the new
opportunities.

Thus Indian pharmaceutical players have benefitted from this system.

Companies like Cipla produces life saving drugs like AIDS vaccine at prices
much lesser than its US counterparts thus benefitting from the system and
doing good to the society. The original product of the British firm Glaxo
Wellcome is sold for more than double the price in India, Pakistan and

pg. 14
 Indonesia - and costs five to six times more in the USA and Great Britain.
But with new patent laws such benefits will not be available to Indian firms
and hence will lead to high increase in prices of such drugs.

TRIPS AND PUBLIC HEALTH

A large part of this was settled when WTO ministers issued a special
declaration at the Doha Ministerial Conference in November 2001. They
agreed that the TRIPS Agreement does not and should not prevent members
from taking measures to protect public health. They underscored countries’
ability to use the flexibilities that are built into the TRIPS Agreement. And
they agreed to extend exemptions on pharmaceutical patent protection for
least-developed countries until 2016.

6.3 AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

Provisions of TRIPs seriously threaten self reliance in
Agriculture and the livelihoods of farmers, by seeking to establish a
monopoly for the Life Science Corporations on seed production and sale.

• Most of the world's biological diversity occurs in the Asian countries,

whereas most of the development utilizing it occurs in the America
and Europe. Developing countries like India are suppliers of almost
all original germplasm used in research but do not have the resources
to develop along the line of IPRs.
• TRIPs provides for wide property rights to be obtained in gene
technology, profiting the IPR holder and restricting the use of the
product derived from the genetic material implies that if the
requirement of human inventiveness is met, an individual or corporate
entity can gain monopoly rights on: any type of living being (except
humans) and its products, cells, genes and DNA (including natural);

pg. 15
 the specific uses of a "biological agent (novel or pre-existing)"; and
the processes of gene technology.
• IPRs have helped to create a climate in biotechnology where only the
huge agricultural conglomerates can afford the costs of research and
patenting. By requiring developing countries to institute a strict IPR
regime, TRIPs creates an environment that will allow TNCs(Trans
national corporations) to dominate the agricultural industry.
• One of the direct costs of the 'biopatents' is that they can decrease the
independence of farmers. Prompted to keep up with the production of
high yield varieties, farmers that buy genetically modified organisms
(GMOs) for production are then locked into a relationship of
dependence with the patent owner-supplier. They are not legally
entitled to save and use seed, or keep the offspring from their
livestock without paying royalties to the patent owner. This pattern of
production moves farmers further away from sustainable farming
practices and increases their vulnerability to the vagaries of the
market.
• Indian farmers have used neem for generations as a pesticide and
fungicide. There are now more than 35 patents from the neem tree in
the United States and Europe. None of the profits from the patents are
returning to the traditional owners and the increased market cost has
resulted in decreased availability to local communities. Another
example was a patent granted in 1995 to US scientists for the use of
turmeric for healing wounds. They claimed its use to be novel
whereas this had been a traditional use, amongst others, in India for
centuries.

6.4 TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND BIO DIVERSITY

Biodiversity encompasses all species of plants, animals and micro-
organisms and the variation between them, and the eco-systems of which
they form a part. It occurs at three levels, namely: (i) species level - refers to
number and kinds of living organisms; (ii) genetic level - refers to genetic
variation within a population of species and (iii) eco-system level - refers to
the variety of habitats, biological communities and ecological processes that
occur in such habitats.

pg. 16
Traditional knowledge (TK) associated with biological resources is an
intangible component of the resource itself. TK has the potential of being
translated into commercial benefits by providing leads for development of
useful products and processes. The valuable leads provided by TK save time,
money and investment of modern biotech industry into any research and
product development. Hence, a share of benefits must accrue to creators and
holders of TK. Only new knowledge can be patented. Patents only apply to
inventions, not to existing knowledge. But if knowledge is held only in oral
form, then many IPR regimes, do not consider oral knowledge as proof of
previous documentation and therefore such knowledge is in danger of being
patented.

India is pressing for changes in the WTO TRIPs regime in order to protect
traditional knowledge and prevent bio-piracy. Issue was important for
developing countries as piracy of biological material and misappropriation
of traditional knowledge was taking place. Hence, India, along with some
other mega-biodiverse developing countries, is demanding a legally binding
regime which would enjoin all WTO members to amend their IPR laws.

This was to include the following three principles:

• Disclosure of country or origin of source of biological material or

traditional knowledge
• Prior Informed Consent (PIC), and Equitable
• Benefit Sharing

REASONS:

Value realisation of traditional knowledge is essential for the sustainable use

of biodiversity and can play an important role in the development process.
Yet traditional knowledge is often under-utilised, and more dangerously,
also being lost or misappropriated.

Given the WTO patent regime, any lack of international public law measures
to protect against the usurpation of traditional knowledge may even result in
a situation where the traditional knowledge holders are deprived of rights to
use products which have been theirs for generations together. This is

pg. 17
extremely important, as the market value of plant-based medicines sold in
the OECD alone has been estimated at about $ 40-60 billion annually.

The international regime of TK is governed primarily by the CBD and,

therefore, it was recognized that amendments to TRIPS would be needed to
develop a viable means for delivering on benefit sharing objective of the
CBD. Effective documentation of biodiversity resources and micro
organisms was considered essential.

NEGOTIATIONS

It was noted that some developed countries were agreeable to the disclosure
of source and origin of country so long as it had no legal consequences on
the patent system. It was felt that this would not suffice

Discussion is now underway in the WTO on these issues.

NORWEGIAN PROPOSAL

At the last IGC meeting Norway also tabled a proposal on traditional

knowledge (IPW, WIPO, 25 April 2006). Norwegian Proposal is the first
proposal from a developed nation where mandatory disclosure and PIC were
accepted.

GI Extension Issues

Separately, another implementation issue is the proposal to extend the higher

protection of geographical indications that wines and spirits enjoy to other
products as well.

Support for Plant Genetic Treaty

Separately, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) urged

member countries to support the International Treaty on Plant Genetic
Resources for Food and Agriculture, whose goal it is to safeguard the
genetic diversity of crops and fight hunger and malnutrition.

pg. 18
Conclusion

The increasing role of science based industries in agricultural and industrial

production and the growing challenges of environment management means
that it has become necessary to impart dynamism to the functioning of R&D
laboratories. This in effect means giving teeth to Article 67 of the TRIPS
agreement, which provides for technology transfer to developing countries.
The main issue relevant for us is how governments of developed countries
ensure that technology available with private firms is made available to
developing countries that seek it. In many instances, even compulsory
licensing can not adequately address this problem.

So long as Article 67 remains only a statement of intent, without combining

modalities for its operation, the implementation of Uruguay Round would
remain incomplete.

Enforcement

India has one of the toughest copyright laws in the world. As is the case in
many other issues, enforcement holds the key to the problem. There are
several steps taken by various organisations (such as NASSCOM, etc) in
order to effectively implement these laws. The legislation has also been
modified to accommodate the hanging requirements posed by new
technological areas.

Representation in various foray

Participation in the finalization of intellectual property must also be

widened. Race car drivers would not be the best advisers on public transport,
and scientists at the cutting edge of the technological revolution cannot
alone decide its path. This calls for collaboration -- in national and global
foray – between industry, governments, regulators and civil society
organizations.

pg. 19
Recent disputes
1. With India accepting to comply with the norms of TRIPS on
pharmaceutical industry , there was a flood of patent applications filed
by several big pharmaceutical companies, which also included a
patent application by Novartis on Glivec in 1998.
Imatinib was an original invention by Novartis and glivec was seen as
an incremental innovation. The case included complicated matters like
whether Indian patent laws were upto the standard of TRIPS. Novartis
finally lost the case

2. Another famous case was filed by Roche to stop companies like Cipla
and Natco from manufacturing and selling a patented cancer vaccine
drug.

3. India has won a decade long battle against the granting of a patent to a
Neem - based crop fungicide by the European patent office (EPO).
India’s case was presented before EPO by Prof. U.P.Singh. Neem
derivatives have been traditionally used to make insect repellents,
soaps, contraceptives & Ayurvedic medicines & under normal
circumstances a patent application should always be rejected if there
is prior existing knowledge about the product

pg. 20
CRITICISMS
1. It provides a temporary monopoly where none else is allowed the free
flow of ideas or intellectual property
2. It may lead to private censorship where person holding right may
avoid the reproduction of idea
3. The global harmonization of IP laws are criticized by alter
globalization movements too who see it as an extension of US
influence on third world countries.
4. IP is basically of non rivalrous in nature because the person using it
does not devoid its original producer any access to it
5. Transaction losses are high while conferring such rights
6. Last it increases dead weight loss to the economy as one who has info
on latest technology to b used for production may curb its use and
may lead to rentenig process thus adding losses.

pg. 21
Bibliography

‘Intellectual Property as a tool for development in knowledge-

based economy’ – Shahid Ali Khan, Journal of IPR, May 2000

‘The protection and Management of intellectual Property’ –

Dato’ Pahmin, Journal of IPR, January 2000

Websites:

www.wto.org

www.hg.org/intell/

www.ecommerce.ipo.int/

www.worldlegalforum.co.uk/

www.xime.com/

www.apnic.net/

www.indiainfoline.com

pg. 22