Amb/PR of India Ambassador Ajit Kumar’s General Statement at the 22nd session of SCP in Word Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Geneva (July 27, 2015)

Madam Chair,

At the outset, on behalf of the Delegation of India, I would like to congratulate you and the Vice Chair elected during this session. We would also like to compliment the WIPO Secretariat for preparing the documents for the discussion in the present session.

We believe that the development of patent system and use of patent rights should operate in a balanced and an objective manner, which should meet the goal of providing the protection for the moral and material interests of inventors, and at the same time, should assist the development aspects of the society as well. We also believe that a patent is also a social product and it has a social function.

India attaches great importance to the work of SCP and notes the work programme for the present session, in which important issues such as Exceptions and limitations to patent rights, Patents and health and Transfer of technology are retained in the agenda of the Committee. The Delegation of India would like to re-affirm its views expressed in the last SCP meeting, in particular, on the issues related to Exceptions and limitations to patent rights, Quality of patents, including opposition systems, Patents and health, Client-Attorney privileges and Transfer of technology.

With regard to Quality of patents, the quality of examination needs to improve substantially in conformity with the policy objective of a country so that we do not create huge social cost of granting patents to insignificant improvement, which only leads to litigation and create barriers for the dissemination of knowledge and transfer of technology.

Madam Chair

We took note of documents SCP/22/3 and 4. We would like to make detailed comments on these documents during the discussions on the documents. However, as agreed by the committee, we believe that these studies would be based on the information provided by Member States, and would be a collection of factual information, and allow Member States to come up with analysis or recommendations, if any.

Further with respect to other related documents, we reiterate our views expressed in the last SCP meeting.  The sharing of work of other patent offices is not the remedy for improving the quality of patents and also, it cannot be considered to be a solution for addressing the backlog. Rather the sharing of work of other offices could weaken the examination process and capability of patent offices in the developing countries. Thus, steps should be taken to build capacity among patent offices of the developing countries for enabling them to perform their quasi-judicial functions, according to their national laws, in the best manner possible. We therefore, believe that the work sharing should not become an area for norm setting in future

On the issue of Exceptions and limitations, we re-affirm our support to the work program as proposed by Brazil (SCP/14/7 and SCP/19/6) and reiterate that the proposed study might focus upon the use of some Exceptions and limitations like Compulsory licensing, Parallel imports, Government uses, BOLAR exceptions, etc. which are extremely important from the point of view of accessibility and affordability of medicines in developing countries and least developed countries.

On the issue of Patents and Health, in order to meet the requirement of public health with respect to patented drugs and to provide the life-saving drugs on affordable price in developing countries and least developed countries, there is a need not only to study TRIPS flexibilities and effective implementation or utilization of compulsory licensing provisions under Patent Law, but also to study the impact of grant of compulsory licenses and consequential impact on availability and prices of patented drugs.

Further, we re-affirm our support to the studies as proposed by the Delegation of South Africa on behalf of the African group and the Development Agenda Group (SCP/16/7) on Patents and health. We would also like to re-affirm our views expressed in the last SCP meeting on the issues related to document SCP/21/9 concerning feasibility study on the disclosure of International Nonproprietary Names (INN) in patent applications and/or patents and on the issues of a study related to Markush formulae and the huge impediment created by them in healthcare industry by creating mysterious cobweb of unreal compounds to be discovered in future thus stifling innovations in the field of technology.

On the issue of Client-Attorney privileges, we would like to re-affirm our views that the issue is of substantive nature and could be governed by national laws, and therefore, should be discontinued from the work of Committee.

On the issue of Transfer of technology, we believe that the protection and enforcement of patent rights should promote technological innovation and transfer of technology (achievable by patent specifications independent of any know-hows) in the country where the rights are protected; thereby providing the mutual advantage to producers as well as to users of technological knowledge. In order to create balance of rights and obligations, the protection and enforcement of patent rights vis-à-vis technological content of patent specifications should be conducive for the socio-economic developments of the country. In our view, the document SCP/22/4 concerning a study on the sufficiency of disclosure should also be considered under the transfer of technology, as it is much related to the issue of transfer of technology.

Finally, we express satisfaction on the progress made by the SCP in bringing out reasonable studies giving a clear picture on the existing situation across countries on the subjects under consideration. The Delegation of India extends its full cooperation and is ready to participate constructively in the committee’s discussions.

Thank you, Madam Chair.