About Authors:
Ritul bapna
LMC of science and technology,
Jodhpur
*bapnaritul89@gmail.com
1. Introduction
The principal law for patenting system in India is the Patents Act, 1970. Initially, according to the provisions of this law no product patent but only process patents could be granted for inventions relating to food, drugs and chemicals. However, since 2005 product patenting is allowed in India. India being a member country of World Trade Organization (WTO) signed TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement in laws to be followed by each of its member countries. India being a signatory of the TRIPS agreement was under a contractual obligation to amend its Patents law to make it compliant with the provisions of the agreement. The first amendment in this series was in the form of the Patents (Amendment) Act, 1999 to give a pipeline protection till the country starts giving product patents. It laid down the provisions for filing of applications for product patents in the field of drugs and agrochemicals with effect from 1st January1995 as mailbox applications and introduced the grant of Exclusive Marketing Rights (EMRs) on those patents. To comply with the second set of TRIPS obligations India further amended the Patents Act, 1970 by the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2002.Through this amendment provision of 20 years uniform term of patent for all categories of invention was introduced. The third set of amendments in the patent law was introduced as the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005. Through this amendment product patent regime was introduced in India. To implement its TRIPS obligations, India passed changes to its patent law in 2005 so that medicines could now be patented. However, the new law also contained the flexibilities. India has one of the best patent laws in the world in terms of giving some space to its producers to make generic medicines.
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