labels: economy - general
JPC adopts pre-Doha view of Trips news
Praveen Chandran
16 February 2002

Mumbai:
The joint parliamentary committee (JPC) report on patents (second amendment bill, 1999) has failed to avail of the benefits of the Doha Declaration on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) and foregoes all successful gains that India so vehemently fought for at Doha.

The JPC, headed by T N Chaturvedi, appears to have adopted the pre-Doha rigid views of Trips, which were shot down by the Americans who were in the grip of an anthrax scare at that time, while formulating the policy.

It has adopted a complacent approach in different draft proposals for reasons best known to it, says Narendra B Zaveri, an eminent patent expert who has written several books on the subject. "The bill even goes far beyond the requirements of Trips largely compromising public interest and third-party rights conferred by Trips itself."

Zaveri says the Doha declaration on Trips is an official and binding interpretation of the Trips Agreement. "It clearly asserts primacy of public health over commercial interests and recognises the right of member nations to take all measures necessary to provide healthcare to their people by treating Trips as flexible."

It also places a moratorium on raising of World Trade Organisation disputes under Trips till the next ministerial conference to facilitate members adopting such measures without anxiety. The declaration in Doha, thus, removes scope for confusion, doubts or disputes and provides clarity and assurance for adopting suitable patent law changes in the member countries.

But, Zaveri says, though the JPC has taken a considerable care in formulating the policies and principles (set out in the proposed section 83) to be followed for considering applications for grant of compulsory licences, the major gains in the Doha declaration get defeated by the elaborate conditions and time-consuming procedures prescribed by the JPC for such grant in the proposed sections 84, 87, 92 and 117A of the bill.

Curiously, he says, "the bill proposals make no exception from procedural requirements of Sec 87, even for the case of national emergency or extreme urgency. Even after the issue of gazette notification and declaration by the government of such situations, the proposed sections 92 and 87 require the same procedures to be followed before the Controller of Patents, with right of appeal of Appellate Boards as per section 117 A, involving a delay of not less than two years when every days delay adds to the death toll (due to diseases like HIV and TB) in thousands."

He adds that neither the Trips Agreement, nor the Paris Convention, contemplates a right to oppose holding of elaborate inquiries or appeals for grant of compulsory licenses or government use in public interest. However, the JPCs proposed bill by section 87 proscribes such procedures permitting even strangers to oppose the grant of compulsory licenses that virtually nullify this vital public interest safeguard.

Zaveri, who has written Doha to Delhi A Retreat on Healthcare, a book on Indian patents, warns that unless clear, effective, efficient and enforceable safeguards are provided in law, it may turn out to be a "now-or-never" situation for millions of poor victims of Aids/HIV and other pandemics many of them are innocent children and women, and also for the generic industry, which could be greatly marginalised.



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JPC adopts pre-Doha view of Trips