Flexibilities under TRIPS-An analysis of Indian patent regime in respect of section 3 (d)

Abstract

The policy environment has now changed that TRIPS agreement of WTO is binding on all member countries of WTO basically aims at establishing strong minimum standards for intellectual property rights. Under TRIPS, all the member countries will have to provide product patent protection in all products including pharmaceuticals, within the time specified. In order to gain the economic and political benefits of participation in the WTO’s trading system, India had no choice but to bring its patent laws into conformity with the WTO’s intellectual property rules as set forth in TRIPS. Compliance with TRIPS was not the sole driver for the transformation of India’s patents regime, however. Just as India made a deliberate choice in the 1970s to jump-start its indigenous generic drug manufacturing industry by prohibiting the grant of patents on pharmaceutical products, in 2005 it again made a deliberate choice to stimulate domestic innovation in new medicines and therapies. The famed section 3(d) of the Indian patent Act 1970 though amended by 2005 leads to so-called generic v/s innovators war. Its origin lies in generics-centered mind- set of the nation, as a whole; on the other hand, it has the ‘seeds of innovation’.