NEW GOVERNMENT
COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES
SEARCH REDIFF

Apex Court asks govt to explain progress on TRIPS stance

The Supreme Court today issued notices to six ministries, asking them to place on record the steps they have taken on the coming review of Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights or TRIPS, scheduled to be taken up at the Seattle round of the World Trade Organisation.

The notices, returnable within the next eight weeks, were issued by a three-judge bench to ministries of commerce, agriculture, health, environment and forest, industries and law, justice and company affairs.

The bench headed by Chief Justice A S Anand heard the case on a petition challenging the Patent (Amendment) Act 1999. The Act seeks to offer exclusive marketing rights to trans-national corporations.

The apex court also put on record the attorney general's statement to the effect that no applications for EMRs have yet been received.

The petition, filed by the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, Azadi Bachao Andolan, Lok Shakti Abhiyan and others, contended that the government's justification of the haste in pushing through amendments to the Patent Act 1970, in order to grant EMRs, has always been the need to meet the international obligations under the TRIPS agreement of the WTO.

However, the TRIPS agreement is itself up for review later this year and the process is supposed to begin at the WTO's round at Seattle in November-December.

While many developing countries, including Sri Lanka, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Venezuela, Jamaica have already taken steps to initiate the TRIPS review and have put in their position papers in this regard, India has not taken any step so far to ensure that TRIPS is amended to suit its interests, Indira Jaisingh, counsel for petitioners alleged.

This is in spite of the fact that India is a developing countries' leader and has informed the public that it has started intervention in the review process, she added.

UNI

Business