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Steps of the Union Government
E.A. Siddiq, a geneticist who played the key role in developing the
highly successful Pusa Basmati, which presently makes up 60 per cent
of basmati exports, is skeptical about commerce ministry's confidence
that the three patents would not impinge on India's exports. Siddiq,
who is currently with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research's
rice improvement project had said in an interview, "we have enough
ground and necessary scientific evidence to challenge all the three
remaining patents and remove everything because we should not leave
ground for the company to come back tomorrow with more claims. We
do not know (their) hidden agenda." The scientist, who has been member
of the high level committee constituted in 1997 to fight the RiceTec
patents said, "now is the right time for the government to strike
back."
When the members of the Parliament demanded the government to take
up legal battle against the US Patent office decision, the government
responded by saying that it would be considered by the government
only after the geographical indication bill, pending before Parliament
was passed. The bill, now before a parliamentary select committee,
seeks among other things to give recognition to the linkage of a produce
with a particular area. It was assured that the government would not
delay enacting the legislation the moment it was cleared by the committee.
The Union agriculture minister Ajit Singh has also mentioned that
there was no need to worry about the recent patenting of basmati varieties
in the US as the trade name has not been given to them and government
had initiated steps to get exclusive rights on it under the Geographical
Indicator (GI) Act. He also mentioned that currently, getting exclusive
rights over basmati were not possible due to enabling provisions available
only for wines and spirits under the WTO agreement. The minister assured
the Parliament that at present the priority was to get it registered
within the country and the steps were being taken under the aegis
of the commerce ministry. It is proposed that later we should push
for amendments in the WTO agreement to get basmati registered in other
countries which have a GI Act in place.
Meanwhile the plant varieties and farmers' rights bill cleared by
the Lok Sabha is awaiting the nod from the Upper House. This bill
proposes to give farmers rights over their produce and enables the
registration of all varieties developed by them. The Second Amendment
Bill on Patent Act 1999 is still being studied by Joint Parliament
Committee, and Indian innovators keep waiting for the change to take
place at its own pace, slowly. The government should give utmost importance
to these Acts and bills.
It is reported that India would also press for keeping the WTO agenda
limited to areas already mandated for negotiations and reviews. Mandated
negotiations for liberalisation of trade in agriculture and services
and for providing higher level of protection to geographical indications
of products such as Basmati rice or Kolhapur chappals coupled with
mandated reviews of agreements like trade-related intellectual property
rights (TRIPs) and trade-related investment measures (TRIMs) by themselves
constitute a large enough agenda.
We should use all these challenges with regard to turmeric, neem
and basmati to gear ourselves to become more proactive. We need to
be alert enough to sense danger when our bestsellers are exploited
in piggyback marketing of foreign goods.
We must build capacity in generating new intellectual property, protecting
it, and valuing it. We must build capacity in legislation, policy,
and enforcement. We must integrate IPR into courses in law, engineering,
trade and commerce, and social sciences. As Mashelkar says IPR is
a game of the mind. It deals with products of the mind and their impacts,
and these are now being used as strategic weapons. We need a wholly
integrated view at all levels, reflected all through.
There is a unanimous view amongst scientists and legal experts that
the country lags behind in formulating relevant laws making it difficult
to protect the country's bio-diversity. Our parliamentarians should
get down to the business of ensuring that the rules of the Geographical
Indications Bill, passed two years ago, get notified so that we can
actually start protecting and promoting indigenous products. The patent
amendment, plant varieties protection, and biodiversity Bills have
all been extraordinarily, vigorously and intensively debated for several
years. The final product should take care of India's interests.
As the CSIR Director General believes, the author also hopes that
in a country like India, things happen fast if people catch on and
when Institutions and industries come in. One thing the basmati episode
has shown is the need to create far greater awareness, explaining
in the local languages. It is a literacy issue and that includes the
media. We have highly specialist people in different areas but the
problem is that we hardly join together to work for a mission. The
scientists and legal experts should help the legislators and the government
in their efforts to protect the interest of the nation. It is high
time that scientists fulfil their societal responsibility and enable
India to gear to fight the marketing battles of the 21st century.
