Another deadline

Finance minister Yashwant Sinha has caught the Vajpayee fever of announcing the date by which a certain decision will be taken, even before going into the complex issues of the concerned subject. Thus, a la Vajpayee on iridium, Sinha has said in Paris that the cabinet will take a decision on the patents regime on the basis of the report of an inter-ministerial group to be readied on November 15. It is good to assert that the present regime has in place "a government that works faster", to quote Rajiv Gandhi. But this calls for clarity, which seems to be missing, judging by recent reports of deferment of a decision by the cabinet on the `mailbox' and `exclusive marketing rights' (EMR) for drugs. India has agreed before the WTO to implement the mailbox provision and the accompanying EMR. If the reports are correct, the government is having second thoughts. It may be that the preferred alternative, it is now realised, will be to move into a straight forward patents regime (after the necessary legislativeamendment).

If the mailbox is used to defer a new patents law, Indian companies will have to get patents registered abroad before claiming EMR in India. The votaries of the mailbox-EMR are the MNCs; they will be able to establish their brands via EMR without manufacturing them in India. Large Indian firms, which have a commercial relationship with drug MNCs, also favour the mailbox. It is the smaller Indian drug manufacturers that want outright patent legislation (via an ordinance, if necessary). This will give India the option to decide what is patentable and what is not, as also to assess the usefulness of drugs seeking the Indian market. But the issue is not as simple as it appears. Last August, India signed the Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT). Under it, a patent granted in any country which has signed the PCT is valid in all member countries.

According to the TRIPS agreement, countries like India have ten years from 1995 to change over from the process patent to the product-patent regime. So, why hasSinha rushed to prescribe the November 15 deadline? India can accept patents from 2005: applications filed in 1995 will have a patent life of 10 years thereafter. Patent legislation is no simple matter. How patents will be worked, obligations to transfer technology, compulsory licensing for manufacture, etc, have all to be woven in. There are several policy issues which will determine what should and should not be amended in the Indian Patents Act, 1970, without violating obligations before the WTO. Patents law will have to be nuanced with great skill; this cannot be done by conforming to a pre-emptory deadline.

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