CPM Parliamentarians on Friday said they were ‘‘satisfied’’ with the way their dialogue with the UPA government on the Patents (Amendment) Bill was progressing and that the government has almost acceded to seven of their 12 demands.CPM leader of the Rajya Sabha, Nilotpal Basu told reporters that the talks were going on well. Another CPM leader attending this dialogue process, Rupchand Pal said, ‘‘The talks are positive and it could be that the UPA government would understand our position and agree to all these demands.’’Explaining the details of the dialogue that has been going on, Pal said three of the 12 areas concerned ‘‘definitions’’ in areas like new inventions or new entities. Another area where agreement has been reached is ‘‘compulsory licensing’’ whereby among other issues, patented drugs can be produced when a country is hit by natural calamities. The affected country then will have the rights to have easy access to these medicines that are urgently required in dire times. Pal said,‘‘transitional negotiations’’ have also gone off well. He said this pertained to the status of the patent regime during period between 1995 and 2005. Certain stumbling blocks related to this period have also been sorted out, he said.The Left has been coming out with affirmative views on the Patents Bill soon after the dialogue process started. This, despite the initial reservations of all its senior leaders who had thought that the government might not climb down at all. But though the CPM claims that the smaller partners would toe the line and withdraw their earlier hostile stance towards the new patents regime, the RSP maintained it stuck to its previously held views on the subject.But BJP still belligerentNew Delhi: The BJP on Friday said it would press for voting and not allow passage of the Bill in Parliament by Voice Vote if the government does not refer it to a Standing Committee or a Joint Select Committee.This was stated by BJP Parliamentary Party Spokesman V.K. Malhotra. —PTI
