People's Democracy

Convention Rejects Patents Ordinance

March To Parliament On February 26

A BROAD based convention organised by trade unions, federations, mass organisations and experts on patents and related subjects unanimously resolved to hold a massive rally before parliament on February 26, the second day of the budget session, demanding rejection of the Third Amendment to the Indian Patents Act.

It was indeed a convention with a difference as it had an amalgam of mass organisations representing workers, employees, peasants, agricultural workers, students, youth, women, science forums and professionals on one platform. In one voice they castigated the action of the UPA government to promulgate the ordinance amending the Indian Patents Act to make a hurried shift over to product-patent regime.

The convention was attended by more than 300 delegates representing various central trade unions – AICCTU, CITU, TUCC, UTUC and federations NZIEA, BEFI, FMRAI, mass organisations AIKS, AIAWU, AIDWA, AIPWA, SFI, AISA, DYFI, DSF etc.

The convention was conducted by a presidium comprising Sudhir Kumar (CITU), N M Thomas (AICCTU), M L Pandey (TUCC), V Mani (FMRAI), T K Sinha (NZIEA) and M L Malkotia (BEFI).

The convention was addressed among others by M K Pandhe, CITU president, Santosh Roy, AICCTU Delhi secretary, P N Dwivedi (TUCC), S R Pillai, AIKS president, M L Malkotia (BEFI), A K Bhatnagar (NZIEA), T K Mitra (FMRAI), Suneet Chopra (AIAWU), Uma Gupta (AIPWA), Pramila Pandhe (AIDWA), Sreekant (AISA) and Ragesh (SFI). The convention was also addressed by experts on the issue like B Keyala (National Working Group on Patents), S P Shukla (former member of Planning Commission) and Dr Amit Sengupta of Delhi Science Forum. The convention resolved to hold such joint meetings all over the country.

Addressing the convention, speakers unanimously felt that the shift over to product patent regime through promulgation of this ordinance is destined to spell severe damage to the country’s industrial and agricultural economy besides endangering food security and health security for the mass of the common populace. They also debunked the false claim of the government that the the ordinance was promulgated under compulsion to meet obligation under WTO framework and pointed out that the government did not deliberately make use of the avenues of flexibility available in TRIPS and Doha Declaration to guard the interests of the industry, agriculture and public health care and food security. Rather the ordinance opened avenues for the MNCs to patent everything, even the software applications much to the detriment of national interests.

The speakers made it clear that there was no scope for dilly-dallying and demanded drastic changes in the provisions of patents law to adequately take care of and safeguard the interests of the people and the country’s economy in the face of coercive WTO regime.

CITU president M K Pandhe called upon the UPA government to remember the promises made in the Common Minimum Programme. He warned against the coercive pressure being mounted by the US through WTO, World Bank and IMF. Similar sentiments were expressed by many speakers, while experts showed how one by one, we were surrendering to ill-advised diktats. It was pointed out that even the Human Development Index showed we were not progressing.

The Declaration adopted in the convention called upon the toiling and patriotic people of the country to unite and struggle against the retrograde ordinance and build up pressure on the UPA government to scrap the ordinance and formulate appropriate patent regime in the interests of the country’s economy and the people, instead of patronising the MNCs.

Full text of declaration is given below:

DECLARATION

THIS convention of the trade unions and the mass organisations representing workers, employees, peasants, agricultural workers, students, youth, women, science-forums and professionals strongly denounces the action of the UPA government to promulgate the Third Amendment Ordinance of the Indian Patents Act to make a hurried shift over to product-patent regime.

The convention opines that the patent ordinance is not in the interest of the mass of the people of the country across the sectors and the product patent regime in its present form is going to seriously damage our industry and agriculture and allow the multinational companies to widen and harden their grip on the economy. The pharmaceutical industry will be worst affected and the prices of essential medicines will zoom high beyond the affordability of common populace as the mega-drug MNCs who hold most of the patents will wield their monopoly rights over production and marketing of those patented drugs under the product patent regime. In the short term, we are poised to see a sharp rise in the prices of those drugs that will be granted patents after January 1, 2005 but are already being produced in the country. It is estimated that there are more than 30 such drugs which account for a combined turnover running into a few thousand crores of rupees. Further, all new drugs that are discovered after January 1, 2005 will be priced in the country at levels that will “cost out” an overwhelming majority of Indians as MNCs who hold such patents will resort to monopoly pricing. The ability of the Indian industry to innovate new processes for patented drugs which developed during the entire process patent regime so long in vogue in our country, will be destroyed, thereby handing over the Indian Drug Industry to MNCs.

It is just not the pharmaceutical sector alone, other sectors of the industry involving discovery new products, designs etc are slated to be affected in a big way by the product patent regime holding industrial economy to ransom besides making it dependent on the MNCs. As for example, the post ordinance patent regime will allow patenting of computer software. The ordinance states that any computer programme which has a technical application to industry or which can be incorporated in hardware can be patented. Since any commercial software has some industry-application and all applications can be construed as technical applications, it will open all software to patenting. This will severely retard software development in our country thus affecting almost all industries having computer applications besides the computer industry itself. The research and development activities will also be severely impaired under the new dispensation.

Apart from industry, agriculture is also going to be affected in a big way threatening the food security of the country besides the earning and livelihood of the rural populace. The prices of seeds, pesticides, bio-technical products etc will rise further intensifying the crisis in agriculture due to high input costs and falling product prices. MNCs are already moving fast in patenting our indigenous seeds and many traditional agricultural products and the ordinance conclusively takes away the rights of the peasantry even to make effort to resist such onslaughts. The new Seeds Bill 2004 has already been introduced in parliament during the last session which is a complementary measure to the patents amendment ordinance initiating the product patent regime in the country. It is aimed at making our peasantry and country’s agriculture totally dependent on the MNCs even in respect of seeds by way of stopping them from seed saving, seed-exchange and seed-reproduction indigenously.

In totality the introduction of the coercive product patent regime through promulgation of the Third Amendment Ordinance of the Indian Patents Act is destined to spell further damage to the country’s industrial and agricultural economy besides endangering the food security and the health security for the mass of the populace just to benefit the giant multinational companies and foreign capital.

The plea being made by the UPA government that it has been a compulsion under the WTO agreement pertaining to Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to introduce product patent regime by January 1, 2005 is ill-conceived. The WTO agreement is unjust and the TRIPS is coercive. Despite that there has been room for deferring the changeover to product patenting within the niche of flexibility of TRIPS and Doha Declaration. The need to fully exploit the niches of flexibility available in TRIPS so as to redress the tilt in favour of the MNCs has been deliberately ignored by the government. Instead of availing such provisions of flexibility, the UPA government demonstrated undesirable haste in promulgating the ordinance even without caring for the concrete and workable suggestions put forth by the experts and the mass organisations to effectively avail such niche of flexibility within TRIPS in the interests of our people and the economy and incorporate provisions, appropriate definitions on various aspects within our patent legislation to safeguard our interests.

The claim of the government that 97 per cent of the drugs are off-patent is not correct.  This is borne out by the fact that over 3 lakh patent applications are now being annually filed in USA, China and elsewhere. This will completely distort the market and we would be flooded with patented products in the coming future and they will be governed by monopolistic prices.

In the circumstances, this convention reiterates our resolve to oppose the Third Amendment Ordinance tooth and nail. We appeal to all members of parliament to consider the momentous issues at stake and join hands to defeat the proposed amendment to the India Patents Act when the ordinance would eventually come up before the parliament for approval.

We appeal to the working class and right-thinking persons from all walks of life to unite and resist the servile design of the government as reflected through hurried promulgation of ordinance amending the Indian Patents Act through countrywide mobilisation and struggle. The convention calls upon the mass of the people to hold massive demonstration before parliament on February 26, 2005, the second day of the budget session, to press for drastic changes in the provisions of the ordinance to adequately take care of and safeguard the interests of the people and the country’s economy in the face of coercive WTO regime. (INN)