Laws and policies dealing with Intellectual property rights (IPR) in India are being given a push so that they act as a facilitator for research and development in patenting and innovations, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday.
Sitharaman said that the country has been able to undertake large scale research and development in patenting and innovations since the environment has been made conducive for the purpose.
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“In India of course , IPR laws, the policy are all being given a certain kind of push, because any research and development in patenting and innovations which are happening in very big scale in India now, because the environment is being made conducive for that purpose. In that we keep balancing the protection for those who innovate, those who seek the patent, those who get the patent together with looking at the commercial propositions with which we can be of use for our society. So the IPR laws, we are trying to make them as a facilitator, booster and not certainly a barrier in the process of R & D,” the minister said while speaking at the book launch event of Justice Prathiba M Singh on Patent Law.
The book which justice Singh had started writing in 2015, contains 20 chapters dealing with the evolution of the Indian patent system and its location in the development of global system. It not only covers all the aspects of substantive and procedural patent law but also deals with licensing, the interface of patent and competition law. The book also contains a list of judges who have shaped patent law in India.
To ensure that IPR laws do not act as a barrier in research and development, the finance minister said that the country under the aegis of Prime Minister Narendra Modi not only came up with the National IPR Policy in 2016 but also brought eight different items, including patents, trademark, industrial designs and copyrights under the same framework.
“We have taken quite a few steps and I similarly thank Hon’ble Prime Minister for this particular policy which, after note of consultation, has come up in 2016 and a few things were taken up soon after that. Eight different items all of those which have something to do with intellectual property have all been brought together meaning they are under one umbrella. As a result we are not running from pillar to post. Everything to do with the policy management on intellectual property rights are now under one framework be it patents, trademark, industrial designs, copyrights, geographical indications, semiconductor integrated circuit layout design, trade secret and also plant variety. So all eight of them are broadly under the same framework and the legislative framework is TRIPS compliant. Its necessarily its for safeguarding IPR and we certainly as said earlier are trying to balance between patent protection as much as development concerns which they have to address,” she said.
She also said that Justice Singh has played a significant role in the milestone that India has achieved in patents and copyrights in the last 10 years and has contextualized India’s IPR trajectory with what is happening globally.
“In India’s long history dealing with patents and copyrights, the last 10 years have seen quite a few milestone and in each one of them, which I will very briefly make out, justice Pratibha Singh, as justice much more even before it, has had a very significant role to play,” Sitharaman said.
Justice Prathiba M Singh said that her aspiration to write the commentary was to have a book for Indian patent law in the global context.
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Senior advocate and King’s Counsel Harish Salve said that justice Singh’s book will occupy its place alongside other recognised important treaties on the subject of intellectual property law. “I’ve always admired the width and depth of your knowledge in the field of intellectual property law be it the law of patents, the law of copyrights, law of trademarks but what I have almost envied is your ability to explain complex propositions so simply by breaking down and putting them side by side so that even for the untrained and inexperienced mind it may become easy to grasp. This book will certainly occupy its place alongside other recognised important treaties on the subject of intellectual property law,” Salve said.
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