The Ministry of Commerce and Industry, under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, has introduced draft amendments to the Patents Rules, 2003. These drafts detail various changes proposed by the Central Government, anchored on section 159 of the Patents Act, 1970. The government seeks to amend the …
TRADE concerns inevitably win over environmental imperatives: that's how most observers cynically view the common agenda for environment signed between India and the us on April 18, despite the us undersecretary of state for global affairs, Timothy Wirth's emphasis that his government would not use environmental issues as a lever …
President Carlos Menem of Argentina has thrown up his arms on the issue of the country's new patent law, lambasted both at home and by Washington. The law, which was recently approved by the Argentinian Congress, was described as 11 piracy" by the us Republican Senator Bob Dole. Even the …
THE confidence of the Narasimha Rao government to change the Indian Patent Act, 1970 -- despite the smooth and convinced air is had assumed for so long -- was shaken on March 22, when its proposed Patent (Amendment) Bill, 1995 was passed by the Lok Sabha by a wafer-thin majority …
WALKING the tightrope of claims and counter claims seems to have become a way of life for the European Patent Office (EPO) as it contends with on a growing flood of hideously complicated patent claims. (Down To Earth, April 15, 1995. In a new ruling issued in early March, the …
Late January, the European Patent Office took a tough stand on gene patenting by upholding a patent granted to the Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology and Medicine, Melbourne, Australia. The patent covered the gene for H2-relaxin, a protein that allows the pelvic girdle to widen during pregnancy and childbirth. …
THE 7-year-long debate over patenting of life-forms in Europe has finally reached its denouement. On March 1, the European Parliament decided to drop a proposed directive that would have introduced common standards throughout the European Community (EC) for the patenting of new plants and genetically-altered animals. Ethical issues seem to …
What do you hope to achieve by patenting the protein gene extracted from Amaranthus or Ramdana? Cereals like rice and wheat are an important protein source. However, they are not nutritionally very efficient as they have very low concentrations of several essential amino acids, like tryptophan and lysine. Legumes like …
The Union government is sparing no effort to ensure the finalisation of its proposed Plant Varieties Bill. Senior bureaucrats of the agriculture ministry point out that India will have to announce the legislation of this bill before 1996 in order to be eligible for the 1978 UPOV Convention, which provides …
Expectations of a bill to effect changes in the country's patent laws were belied when the Union government bypassed Parliament by issuing an executive ordinance on the matter. Changes in the patent laws were necessary to meet the stipulations of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which came into being on …
GLOBAL trade and agriculture now embarks on a new phase on January 1, 1995, with the establishment of the World Trade Organisation. However, the prickly question of control over crop seeds of the world seems likely to bedevil international negotiators. The latest uncomfortable reminder was exemplified by 2 separate challenges …
WASHINGTON is in the grip of a GATT fever with the American Congress and the Clinton administration locked eyeball to eyeball over Congressional approval of the Uruguay round. So far, President Clinton and his crew have tried in vain to convince Congressmen that the multilateral trade agreement is the best …
An online networking facility introduced on November 19 by the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) will enable Indian manufacturers to keep track of international patents and the latest available industrial technologies. In the past, representative organisations of the Indian industry regularly complained about delays in patent and copyright information. As …
IN A significant shift in research emphasis, Indian scientists in the drugs and pharmaceuticals sector are focusing on product development rather than the usual process development. The government has launched a "Drug Mission" designed to involve industry in drug development from the very beginning. "We are equipping ourselves for the …
A group of leading agricultural scientists in the country has called for the patenting of plant and animal biodiversity to be emphasised in order to ensure the introduction of an effective germplasm bank. In their paper, Genesis of farmers' prosperity and the gatt agreement, R K Patel, vice-chancellor, Rajasthan Agricultural …
A group of leading agricultural scientists in the country has called for the patenting of plant and animal biodiversity to be emphasised in order to ensure the introduction of an effective germplasm bank. In their paper, Genesis of farmers' prosperity and the gatt agreement, R K Patel, vice-chancellor, Rajasthan Agricultural …
The department of biotechnology (DBT) and a team of researchers at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have filed India's first international patent on the amaranthus gene that could help create new breeds of crops endowed with the best protein blend for human nutrition. This would be one of India's first …
RICE has traversed the world and has ended up where it has no business to be. Should an American multinational, of all entities, hold the international patent for 2 traditional Asian rice varieties -- Indica and Japonica? Agracetus, the powerful biotech subsidiary of W R Grace, claims that it has …
While P V Narasimha Rao was meeting Bill Clinton to discuss "mutual" problems like intellectual property rights, the US had already reneged on the Biodiversity Convention by interpreting that GATT rules override matters related to technology transfer and intellectual property rights in the Convention. Thus, the US has not only …
I READ the film review, Patent prejudice in the May 15 issue of Down To Earth with a great deal of amusement, anguish and embarrassment. Amusement because the caption under a photo taken from the film makes a false claim. Nobody has patented the use of neem as a pesticide. …
IN MARCH this year, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), in cooperation with the Indian government and the Confederation of Indian Industry, held a Asian regional seminar on the better use of patent information by industry. According to a paper presented at the seminar by Jean-Michel Ziliox of the European …
