Politicization of patents not a new development

How long back would you have to look if you wanted to find the link between patents and politics? Probably at the very inception of patents. The linkage between the two can be traced to the first letters patent granted by royal decree. When patent rights were born, they were translated by the political will of the monarch. In the 1990s, when the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was signed, world politics stood divided between developed vis-à-vis developing and least developed countries. Amid a lot of upheaval an uneasy treaty forged its way ahead.

Free patent years

In the 1970s India had a free patent regime which, combined with drug price control, kept drugs at reasonable price. Post the signing of TRIPS in 1995, India was given a transition period of 10 years to become fully compliant in view of its status as a developing country. This 10-year period paved the way for the Indian pharmaceutical industry to flourish.

India reverse engineered foreign patented drugs without licensing and was able to make less expensive copies (aka generics) of the world’s best-selling patent protected drugs. India now is the top supplier of generics. This transition from virtually non-existent to a leading drug manufacturer happened over these free patent years.

Richa Pandey is a partner at Krishna & Saurastri Associates. She is an advocate registered with the Bar Council of India and also a patent attorney.