India is well poised to emerge as a superpower in context with its potential in the area of patents, R A Mashelkar, director general of Scientific and Industrial Research, said on Friday.
The discussion was in line with the third amendment of the Patent Act that will include the product patent for pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries by 2005 to meet India's international obligations. Mashelkar was speaking at a seminar on the Indian Patents Act.
In his speech, Mashelkar outlined an agenda for the new India and a road map for the future. He cited the example of Korea, which built on its science and technology capacity to become an economic power.
Looking towards the future he said, "The 21st century will be the century of knowledge and the century of mind."
He firmly stressed the need to protect and work closely with the traditional wisdom and was of the opinion that this co-operation was vital for leadership in the new age.
He reiterated the yeoman's work done by CSIR in IPR. He jocularly termed the battle to protect turmeric as "second battle of Haldighati".
"It was the new Indian consciousness that won battle for turmeric and basmati," he said.
He stated that CSIR was No 2 in the patent co-operation treaty in 2001 and in 2002 it jointly held the numero uno position with Samsung.
"This is a matter of great pride as Samsung has 11 times more R&D budget and 4 time the personal that CSIR has," he added.
CSIR has been roughly, doubling the number of US patents filed -- with 145 filed in 2002 from the 69 filed the year before.
Other speakers at the forum included A E Ahmad, IAS, joint secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion -- government of India; NK Garg, asst controller, Indian Patent Office and Swati Piramal, director, Nicholas Piramal India.
Piramal underlined the various false notions regarding patent regime like expense days, inability to handle epidemics, and sidelining of traditional medicines, increasing R&D spends.
She said in all probability, drugs will become cheaper and that the cost of drugs in India is 1/8th of the cost in any other part of the world.
"IPR will give rise to 'virtual monopoly', which India will lead because of its knowledge power. This monopoly will control access, create new buy-sell relationship and be treated like any other property," Piramal said.
Ahmad remarked on the WTO agreement and said, "IPR means business in economic terms. IPR will help capitalise innovation in enterprise and enterprise in innovation." He highlighted the various steps taken to upgrade the patent offices across the country.
