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Mashelkar's Report and the threatening IPR Regime
Using experts to develop reports based on which laws are amended to suit vested interests is an old ploy of the scheming business people. Naavi.org has discussed at length how the interests of baazee.com was sought to be served by the amendments to Information Technology Act 2000. Now it appears that yet another "Expert Committee" report namely the "Mashelkar's report" is being used to make amendments to Patent Law in India which could turn out to be detrimental to the interests of the common people in India.
India was once colonized by such businessmen who came to India as traders and ended up as rulers. It required millions of people to sacrifice their life and property and leaders like Mahatma Gandhi to gain freedom. The developed world now has found a new way of "Intellectual Colonization" with Intellectual Property Laws pushed through the "Globalization theme".
Already the Copyright Law in India has already been made TRIPs compliant so that interests of International copyright holders are well protected in India. In fact the Government is going even beyond the TRIPS agreement with the further amendments proposed to Copyright Act where "Contributory Infringement" is made a punishable offence. This provision which was a part of the infamous DMCA of USA was widely discussed during the Elcomsoft Vs Adobe case where Mr Dmitry Sklyrov, a software programmer was arrested in USA. Additionally, some attempt is also being made to introduce the concept of protection of "Digital Rights Management Measures". The full implications of this provision is not known but knowing the interest of software developers like Microsoft on DRM, it can be expected that the proposed legislation would be used to further the monopoly of Microsoft over the Digital Society of India.
Now India is also acceding to the Madrid Protocol on Trade Marks which will enable global trade mark owners extending their trademark rights to India with greater ease.
No doubt that the advantages enjoyed by foreign Copyright and Trade Mark right owners in the Indian market is also available to Indian entrepreneurs in the global market. However this is precisely the kind of "East India Company strategy" that Indians have to be wary of. It is clear that the globalization of IPR will benefit each country roughly in the ratio of their share in the International Trade. Since India has more inbound trade than outbound trade in the International scenario, India has to pay out more for the IPR imports than it would gain by IPR exports. Very soon, Indian economy would be under mortgage to the International Traders because of the IPR protection they would enjoy. Like the Indian Policemen who would beat up and arrest Indian freedom fighters, Indian law enforcers would go around arresting Indians and confiscating their assets trying to protect the IPR of some foreign business house. To understand the risks that are building up, it is enough to understand the present dependence of Indian economy on one single company called Microsoft. If for any reason, Microsoft turns against India, and starts arm twisting Indian IT users, the economy can get crippled.
Now, the Mashelkar's report on Patent Regime is likely to persuade the Government to extend the hold of the International Patent holders in India particularly affecting the common man's requirement for life saving drugs at affordable cost.
The report supports the obnoxious "Evergreening" process by which MNCs try to keep their patent hold extended indefinitely. Other experts have indicated that the Mashelkar's committee has not conducted enough research on the subject on its own before concluding that "Incremental Innovation Patenting" is not harmful to India and recommending its acceptance. It is also observed that the "Mashelkar's Expert Committee" simply relied on the research report sponsored by some trade interests in arriving at the conclusion and in order to fool the public chose not to disclose the source of the research report also.
This development to push through Incremental patenting in Pharma sector and Patenting of Micro organisms through an expert committee opinion that not doing so would violate TRIPS may soon be extended to software patenting also.
An article published in The Hindu today (12th February 2007) explains how Mashelkar's report is an attempt to compromise the Patent Regime in India to serve vested interests. All persons concerned about the future of India need to think on "How IPR could be used to colonize India of 2020" and contribute to the debate on steps to be taken to safeguard our Interests. This is as much important for the Pharma users as the farmers and software users in India.
Naavi
February 12, 2007
Related Article in The Hindu: First attempt to dent a compromised patent system
