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PATENTS LAW IN INDIA

The history of Patent law in India starts from 1911


when the Indian Patents and Designs Act, 1911 was enacted.
The present Patents Act, 1970 came into force in the year 1972,
amending and consolidating the existing law relating to Patents
in India.
The patents Act, 1970 was again amended by the
Patents 9Amendment) Act, 2005, wherein product Patent was
extended to all fields of technology including food, drugs,
chemicals and micro organisms. After the amendment, the
provisions relating to Exclusive Marketing Rights (EMRs) have
been repealed, and a provision for enabling grant of compulsory
license has been introduced. The provisions relating to pre-
grant and post-grant opposition have been also introduced.
An invention relating to a product or a process that is
new, involving inventive step and capable of industrial
application can be patented in India.
However, it must not fall into the category of
inventions that are non patentable as provided under section 3
and 4 of the (Indian) Patents Act, 1970. In India, a patent
application can be filed, either alone or jointly, by true and first
inventor or his assignee.

Patent is a monopoly right granted by the state to an


inventor for a limited period, in respect of the invention, to the
exclusion of all others. A system of Patents serves many useful
purposes.
The term of every Patent in India is twenty years from
the date of filing the Patent application, irrespective of whether
it is filed with provisional or complete specification. However,
in case of applications filed under the Patent Cooperative
Treaty (PCT), the term of twenty years begins from the
international filing date.

CASE STUDY

NEEM PATENT REVOKED BY EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE


Date: 28/12/2004
Chakravarthi Raghavan, 11 may 2000. The European patent
office (EPO) has acted to revoke a patent granted earlier to a
fungicide derived from the Indian medicinal tree Neem. The
challengers had demanded the invalidation of the patent on the
ground that the fungicide qualities of the Neem and its use have
been known in India for over 2000yrs, and for use to make
insect repellents, soaps, cosmetics and contraceptives. In
revoking the patent, the EPO agreed that the patent amounted
to bio-piracy and that the process for which the patent had been
granted had actually been in use in India from time
immemorial. The successful challenge has implications for
other cases of bio-piracy as well as for amendments to the
Indian patent law (to comply with the WTO). An earlier Indian
government challenge in the US led to the revocation of a
patent on another Indian plant, turmeric, whose medicinal
qualities have been known for centuries.

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