The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Expert allays apprehensions on licences for U.S. patents

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 21, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Expert allays apprehensions on licences for U.S. patents

Govind D. Belgaumkar

BANGALORE: Indian industries and farmers need not fear U.S. patent laws, though there have been some "short-term horror stories," according to Charles R. McManis, Director of Intellectual Property and Technology Law Programme of Washington University.

Talking to The Hindu on the sidelines of the Third International Asian Conference of the International Technology Association here, he brushed aside the fears of the biotechnology industry that U.S.-based patent owners may withhold licences, thereby hampering the industry's growth. If any American patent owner makes exorbitant demands, the Indian Government can intervene under the "compulsory patent" provision of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Indian companies will thus get licences at an affordable price.

The term "invention" is yet to be defined by TRIPS. As India came under TRIPS only in 2005, its disputes settlement mechanism may define it once a reference is made to it.

But the Indian biotechnology industry and pharmaceutical companies need not hope for much from this exercise; they need not lose hope either, Prof. McManis said.

On a positive note, most of the biotechnology patents are owned by universities in the U.S., which are not averse to granting licences for research and other purposes. He discounted the fear that private persons or companies owned "most of the genes in my body," as is being made by a section of the media.

On the other hand, U.S. citizens or companies owning genes that have uses only in India would be keen to give licences at prices "you (Indians) demand." He gave the example of neem, unheard of in the U.S, whose patent owner could benefit only by selling the rights to Indians.

There indeed was a "gold rush" to get patents registered in the U.S. initially. But once the authorities began to insist that inventors specify the possible research uses of genes identified by them, the applications for patents dropped sharply.

The U.S. patenting system is working the way it should be working. The Indian biotechnology industry could not hope to do what many Indian pharmaceutical industries did in the past: use patented genes without licences, he said.

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