The above is article from Hindu. A general article on balancin | ECONOMY by VIVEK SINGH

The above is article from Hindu. A general article on balancing the rights of the patent owner and the society in general.

Post independence, the colonial-era laws that we inherited allowed for pharmaceutical patents. But based on the Rajagopala Ayyangar Committee, India enacted the "Patents Act 1970" which removed patents on PRODUCTS and allowed patents only on PROCESSES. This allowed Indian generic drug manufacturers to produce the drugs through different processes and as a result life saving drugs were made available to people at affordable prices. BUT, the WTO TRIPS Agreement of 1995 asked all the member countries of WTO to have their patent laws in compliance with the TRIPS law and we (India) were given time till 2005 to change our patent laws to comply with the TRIPS Agreement. Accordingly India introduced PRODUCT patents in the Indian Patent Act 1970 through an amendment in 2005.

As the patents give a monopoly to the innovator, it has wide implications on the affordability of drugs for the poor. And this system of patents forces the poor (with disease) to pay the price... which means the very poor in the developing world are condemned to death. Joseph Stiglitz (the economist with Nobel prize) suggests that "A system that replaces patents with prizes will be more efficient and equitable" because the incentive for research will flow from Govt. funds while ensuring that the biases associated with patent monopolies are removed.