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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, April 8: The BJP Government needs to enact at least five laws to protect intellectual property rights (IPR), apart from the changes in the Patents Act, by the end of next year to meet the commitments under World Trade Organisation. While the focus of everyone till now has been on patents, these other laws have largely been ignored in the debates and discussions on IPR laws for India.
In fact many of these laws will not only protect domestic industry form foreign competition, they will arm them to fight the MNCs on their own ground. Apart from the amendments in the patents act, the other laws acts which need to be enacted are for protecting trademarks; geographical indicators; industrial designs; layout designs of integrated circuits; and for protecting trade secrets. All these acts will help the domestic industry more than the MNCs feel experts. The new Industry Minister Sikandar Bakht has taken the first good step by setting up an new expert group to advise him on these changes. But it willrequire a lot of courage and commitment, if the BJP Government is to get these laws passed. There is still tremendous political ignorance about the benefits of these acts. And this ignorance is feeding political opposition to any changes in India’s IPR laws. Of all the laws to be enacted, amendments in Patents Act have demanded the most attention because of the effect it will have on domestic drugs and pharmaceuticals business. But the politicians have clubbed all the laws together and say that unless the controversy over the patents laws is sorted out, the other laws should not be passed. This argument led to the fall of the Patents Amendment Bill in Rajya Sabha in 1995.
Well-placed sources say that that almost 80 per cent of the work on these laws has already been done by the government. It needs not more than a few weeks work to get the draft bills ready. But if political opposition continues, then each of these will be referred to a Parliamentary Committee. The Committee would take at least one yearbefore it offers its verdict. Then the Bills would have to be passed in both the houses. This would imply that India may not be able to meets its December 31, 1999 deadline of changing IPR laws. While MNCs have been putting pressure on India to amend its IPR laws, all of these will actually serve the cause of swadeshi.
Trademarks: An upgraded act to cover trademarks will also allow the registration of service marks and collective marks. The service marks will allow the entire service industry to register its logos and other marks which identify a firm. Banks for instance will be able to ensure that their logos are not copied by others. The collective mark registration will allow entrepreneurs from a certain region who are famous for a particular product to register a name. For instance, all makers of footwear from Kolhapur will be able to register the name Kolhapuri so that any one who manufactures the footwear outside Kolhapur will not be allowed to use the town’s name.
Geographicalindications: Basmati is the best case for this law. This law allows a country to India to register all products where its quality, reputation or other characteristic is essentially attributable to its geographical origin. India was on the verge of getting this law enacted in 1995, when the furore over the patents act relegated it to the background.
Industrial Designs: This law obliges member countries to provide for the protection of independently created industrial design that are new or original. There will be a special provision for taking into account the short life cycle of new designs in the textile sector. This commitment can be met through a separate law or through the copyright law.
Layout designs of integrated circuits: the protection of integrated circuits is crucial to the development of the electronics industry. The design of the connections within the circuit determine the efficiency and the capability of the circuit. Therefor protecting this is essential. The exclusiverights of the owner include the rights of reproduction, of importation, sale and distribution for commercial purposes.
Trade secrets: This is a unique act which India does not have. This will allow a company to register and protect formulas, designs or processes which it does not want to share at all. While a patent runs out in 10-20 years, under this law the company will have no obligation to reveal its secret. Coca-Cola for instance has covered its basic formula of its drink under this law. No one knows exactly how Coke is made, and thanks to this act now one is likely to.
