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 …
• Half the world's 6,000 languages will die out in the next 75 to 100 years. • Harvard biologist Edward Wilson estimates that nearly 140 species become extinct very day. • The world's 250 million indigenous peoples live in about 70 countries and are marginalised wherever they are. In Bolivia, …
Environment ministry guidelines state that many of the adverse impacts of thermal plants can be foreseen and minimised through judicious siting, preventive and control measures and effective environmental management. The ministry has been trying to impose very strict emission controls and other standards to mitigate the environmental problems of power …
ON 16 JUNE, 1980, the US Supreme Court made a historic five to four ruling, the reverberations of which are still being felt. The court held that an industrial patent could be issued to a genetically modified organism. The patent was granted to Dr Ananda Chakrabarty, an employee of the …
Imperial Chemical Industries of England and Calgene of the USA are at war over who owns the patent rights to a "fresh" tomato. Both companies have developed a genetically improved, longer-lasting, non-squishy tomato that retains its flavour and firmness longer. Each pinpointed the enzyme that causes tomatoes to rot and …
THE CAMPAIGN against changes in India's patent, science and investment laws, to bring them in line with the draft proposals of Arthur Dunkel, director-general of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), will now move to the legislatures and the courts. Formulated by the Azadi Bachao Andolan (ABA), a …
IT'S BEEN a rat race to get the patent. But Harvard University's onco-mouse, a creature designed in a laboratory for cancer research, may still not make it. In mid-May, shortly after the European Patent Office published its patent for this mouse that has been given cancer-causing genes, European green activists …
THE biodiversity convention is ready for signature at the Earth Summit. But from the negotiations just concluded in Nairobi, it is clear that the South is in for a bad bargain. It stands to lose access over its biodiversity - plant and animal genetic resources - while it gains only …
FOR once the Japanese are running scared from the Americans. Minolta, the camera manufacturer, recently coughed up US $127.5 million to Honeywell, the US controls technology group, which had slapped a suit for patents infringement on the auto-focus process now so widely used in Japanese cameras. The US company may …
