Earlier, this section had imposed constraints on Indian inventors and restricted the flexibility available to them as they had to wait for six weeks before filing for a patent outside the country.

With the removal of this restriction, Indian inventors need not have to wait for the additional period of six weeks for seeking the government's prior approval, official sources clarify.

In accordance with the obligations contained in the agreement on trade related intellectual property rights, India is required to amend the Patents Act,1970 by December 31, 1999, in respect of the scope of patentable inventions, providing for exclusions from patentability, providing a uniform term of patent protection of 20 years, alignment of compulsory licensing provisions etc.

Sources say the government has had consultations with major political parties and representatives of chambers of commerce regarding the provisions of the amended Product Patents Bill which has now been referred to the select committee of Parliament. During the period from January 1, 1995, to October 31,1999, 2994 applications for product patents have been filed for pharmaceutical products and 494 applications for agricultural chemical products.These applications are yet to be taken up for examination.

The patents are granted in accordance with the provisions of the Patents Act, 1970. However, according to Section (e) of the Act, a patent cannot be granted on an admixture resulting only in the aggregation of the properties of the components or a process for producing such admixture. Further, Section 3(d) prohibits grant of a patent for new use of known substance.

Sources also clarify that no application for "Indian curry by adding traditional Indian spices" had been filed in the patent office in Japan. However, a Japanese company, House Food Corporation, had filed an application for grant of a patent for "cooking of curry" in the Japanese patent office. The application was filed on April 28, 1994 and it was published on November 7, 1995. Sources say that 20,610 patent cases were pending in 1996-97, 28,027 in 1997-98 and 33,276 in 1998-99.

The government has sanctioned a project for modernisation of the patent office at a cost of Rs 75.59 crore. The major components of the project include setting up of a national patent office by upgrading the existing one in Delhi, strengthening the branch offices, providing trained and qualified personnel in the existing and emerging fields of technologies, computerisation and infrastructural support.