Re: Latest on Patents (Amendment) Bill in India

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

Pro-Patent Amendment Bill: UPA (led by Manmohan Singh)/Congress (led by

Gandhi). Anti-Bill (as supported by the NGOs): Left Parties (led by CPI-M) and

BJP (led by the 'Hindu Nationalists')

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Left, BJP refuse to bite Patent Bill

ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU: Posted online: Thursday, March 17, 2005 at 0043 hours IST

NEW DELHI, MARCH 16: With both BJP and the Left parties putting their foot down,

the UPA government is finding it extremely difficult to push through the Patents

(Amendment) Bill in its present form.

Desperate to convince both friends and foes, the government met both Left

Parliamentarians and the BJP leadership on Wednesday afternoon, but appeared to

have made little headway. The government’s logic that it is under international

obligation, as a signatory, to enforce the bill, found no takers in both the BJP

and Left camps.

With Left MPs refusing to fall in line to allow the passage of the bill as it

has been envisaged, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath turned the BJP’s help, again

unsuccessfully.

Kamal Nath called on BJP President L.K. Advani in his chambers in Parliament on

Wednesday to discuss the bill. He argued that the bill, after all, had been

initially moved by the NDA government. But Advani insisted that the bill be sent

to the Standing Committee for detailed discussions, before moving it in

Parliament.

This was as per BJP’s earlier stance and the party been quite vocal about it

since Tuesday. After Wednesday’s meeting, Advani told The Indian Express,

‘‘BJP’s stand even earlier was to refer the bill to the Standing Committee. We

have always maintained that many suggestions could be dealt with in the Standing

Committee.’’

The earlier bill was sent to the Standing Committee towards 2003-end and as the

13th Lok Sabha was dissolved soon after, it never got discussed, Advani said.

The party now wants the UPA government to follow the same route and not rush it

through Parliament.

Open defiance

• Left continues to oppose provisions in Bill

• BJP opposes it more for political reasons

• Patents Ordinance to lapse sans passage by next week

Advani said Nath agreed to ‘‘consider’’ the suggestion and would get back to him

after discussing it with his Cabinet colleagues.

Unlike the Left, which has consistently opposed many provisions in the Patents

Bill, the BJP has no ideological problems with it. The party has decided to

oppose the bill more for political reasons, sources said.

If the bill is not passed by next week, the Patents Ordinance issued by the

government in December will lapse, and a fresh ordinance will have to be issued.

But senior Left leaders have been quite critical and have said they did not

‘‘understand why the government was not inserting protection clauses permitted

under the Doha declaration.’’

A senior Left leader who has been part of the negotiating team said, ‘‘Those

protection clauses can give our domestic industries some leeway to operate, but

the government would not for unspecified reasons be taking recourse to them.’’

Other Left leaders said one could understand the Trips requirement and the

obligations the country had to fulfil. But, they said, there were provisions in

the proposed Amendment Bill which came under the Trips plus category.

Senior CPM Politburo member Prakash Karat said in its present form the bill was

unacceptable. Those Left leaders, who attended Wednesday’s UPA-Left meeting in

Parliament on Patents (Amendment) Bill, said it was ‘‘inconclusive’’. The Left

said till now the UPA government appeared not to have climbed down on any of the

key issues on which it held a diametrically opposite point of view.

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=66602

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For further reading:

Bitter Patents bill stings UPA once again

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=66524

Govt fails to garner Left support for Patents Bill

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1037777.cms

An unhealthy plan for the poor: Balbir K. Punj (BJP)

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=64882