Under the NDA government, India has formed a new National Intellectual Property Rights Policy to look after the commercial interests of musicians, authors and other creative individuals involved in invention of different entities. Here are 10 things you should know about India's new IPR policy.
Also Read: Importance of Trademark Registration for Startups
Ever since the new NDA government came to power in 2014, some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies from the United States wanted India to push for new policy as the general belief was that India's policy on price control, market restriction etc. was not friendly enough to operate the business. However, the India government refuted the claims of the USA regime and asserted that the laws of the Indian state were legal-equitable and WTO-compliant. The finance ministry also added that while the policies must encourage the invention of life saving drugs but also make sure that one must also bear in mind the need of the medicine to be available at a reasonable rate for the populace so that it continues to be readily available for everyone, a practice which had ceases to exist in some part of the world.
- The government plans on reviewing it every five years, but only after consulting all the stakeholders involved.
- Since the government is willing to have a stronger IP law, several measures will be taken, including that to review the existing ones. It is also expected that these reviews will seek to remove the anomalies and discrepancies in the law.
- The policy framed has been made keeping in mind the fact that it must comply with the agreement on TRIPS as envisaged by the WTO.
- There will be special focus on awareness programmes for the effective enforcement of the law and also various incentives will be provided to encourage the commercialisation of IPs
- Also, the government has confirmed the India will constructively work towards negotiating the international treaties and agreements with the stakeholders.
- There are plans of making the department of industrial policy and promotion as the nodal agency for all the issues related to IPR. Even the issues related to copyright are expected to come under the ambit of DIPP as opposed to the earlier practice of dealing copyright infringement through the Human Resources Development (HRD) channel.
- The government has also worked towards modernising the trademark offices and the efforts are already been made to reduce the registration and examination time to one month by next year. There has been some hiring regarding this issue as well and the claims suggest that as many as 100 new examiners have been roped in of late. Presently, the time taken for trademark registration and the entire process has been considerably reduced to 8 months from 13 months.
- The plan is to cover films, music, industrial drawings and all under copyright.
- The policy also will aim to encourage domestic IPR filings for the entire chain from IPR generation to commercialisation. The idea is to promote research and development through tax benefits. Further, the proposal is to create an effective scheme which will ensure easy loans for the new start-ups. The new policy has conveniently let the patent laws go untouched, particularly its section 3(d), which deals with the subject of invention in India.
- According to the new IPR policy, compulsory licensing has been issued only for cancer drug. Earlier, there were come concerns from some quarters regarding India's compulsory licencing policy. The CL policy means that the government can allow a company to produce a patented product without the consent of the patent owner in public interest. The Indian Patents Act states that the CL can be issued for a drug producing company if the said medicine is unaffordable for eh common populace. The government will also consider financial support, albeit for a limited period of time, on sale and export of products based on IPRs generated from those researches which were funded by the public.
