India’s IP regime is being hauled up for not being industry friendly enough by the biotechnology Industry Association (BIA).
Business Standard reports –
The association raised the following concerns:
1. Indian laws lack clarity with regard to the patentability of biomolecules like nucleic acids.
2. The provisions dealing with disallowing patents for known products which do not result in significant enhancement of efficacy.
3. India’s capacity to include data protection clauses for medicines.
4. The “onerous” obligations relating to the disclosure of source and geographical origin of biological materials used for inventions which are the subject matter of patent application which subject “valuable patent rights to uncertainty.
5. Indian patent laws do not favour large scale patent monopoly for incremental innovations on known substances.
The BIA has also pointed out similar deficiencies in the IP regimes of other developing nations like China, Thailan, Brazil, Chile, Egypt etc.
In a representation to the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) on February 11, the association has demanded that India be kept under the priority watch list of USTR due to inadequate intellectual property (IP) compliance.
BIA represents more than 1,100 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centres and related organizations in the US and 31 other countries. In addition to healthcare, BIA members cover sectors like agriculture, industrial and environmental biotechnology products and services.
I think this is lack of knoledge how to go about for a patent application, as the depsositing center one place and patenting procedure is being different. We have a very good patenting procedures but only the problem is it takes unnessarily prolonged time. But it is relatively easier in Biotechnology as the biological information is already filed in one place for its validity. Only the applicant need to mention the accession number and claim accordingly entire process/product or both. I think little bit education on this subject may reduce the hardships, as we can not blame the scientists or workers, those who are involved in this field. As this is going to be the future of the technologies for the humankind, it is better we put more efforts to train and educate patent applicants in this emerging area of Biotechnology.