Biotechnology has been there for about centuries, but was in the last 50 years that this field received a prominent role and name in the world of technology. India is now advancing in its biotechnology inventions and discoveries in leaps and bounds. India is ranked 12th in the list of top biotech nations, being the third topper among the Asian countries. The government has ever supported the Indian biotechnology scenario and the advancements of the IPR in Biotech industry in India is a proof of this support. India has skill, talent, human resources, and even lower R & D facility, this got sparked with the newer IPR regulations and the Indian biotechnology industry is in a boom stage now.
Year’s back, when the first Patent Act was released according to Patent Act of 1970, the government had provisions to patent processes, but not for products. This was one of the major reasons why the biotechnology industry experienced a setback till the year 2005. The companies did not come forward to invent any new product, as they could not patent their hard earned invention. After all the hard work and money added into creating a new product, the IPR in biotech industry in India, could not protect the sole rights of the inventor and anyone could reverse the process to recreate the specific product. This broke all the competitiveness.
The World Trade Organization created the Trade-Related Aspects for Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement in 1994. According to the TRIPS rules, the biological process used for creating a plant or animal could not be patented, but patenting was open to non-biological and microbial processes which was used to product a new plant or animal. With this, the newly found gene sequences, genetic markers etc. could be patented. The TRIPS agreement was adopted by India to save and uphold the concerns of the biotech companies regarding the IPR in biotech industry in India. The Patent (Amendment) Bill 2005 was released on March 23, 2005 in compliance with the TRIPS act.
The Bill had strict regulations according to which product patenting was made available. After facing several oppositions in its developing stage, the patenting of life forms has been excluded. Several organizations came up with the argument that all life forms are god’s gift and any individual or company could not hold a sole patent over any organism by simply altering its gene structure. There were even oppositions over granting IPR in biotech industry in India as a whole. Meeting these resistances, plants, animals and even seeds could not be patented whereas microorganisms could be patented.
There were yet restrictions and conditions applicable while patenting microorganisms. The IPR in biotech industry in India allowed patenting only on inventions and not on discoveries. Any microorganism or substance which is freely found in nature, if discovered, could not be patented according to IPR in biotech industry in India. But, if the microorganism has to be isolated and processed to give a specific property, then the product could be patented as a new invention is made through human intervention. Newly discovered naturally occurring gene segments have been excluded from the patents, but synthetic genes are included. A major drawback has been that software patenting has been strictly barred according to the IPR in biotech industry in India 2005 Act which will affect the development of the bio-informatics industry in India.
New plant varieties are protected according to the sui generis system and gives proper rights to the farmer over the protected new variety. This is a major problem for the small farmers due to the high price of the technology. Traditional knowledge about plants are being lost in the name of exclusive rights giving way to biopiracy with the IPR in biotech industry in India. The indigenous people are losing their knowledge in the name of IPR with over 35,000 Indian medicinal plant patents being owned by US and UK. This has become a major threat for India. The people are eagerly waiting for the new act from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to protect the traditional concerns.
There are still several amendments to be made to the IPR in biotech industry in India to get back the patents of Indian biodiversity in other countries. The awareness about the farmer rights, provisions and infringement acts should be spread to the farmers. The overall IPR in biotech industry in India should be made effective to promote investment and eventually leading to economic development.
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