People's Democracy

 ‘This Law Of Death Is Unacceptable’
March To Parliament Against Patents Amendment Held

A view of the March to Parliament

THE struggle to protect the interests of the nation’s working people from the clutches of MNC-driven patent regime formally began on February 26 with the staging of a massive march to parliament by scores of peasants, workers, employees, students, youth and women. It was made clear to the UPA government that if it ignored the interests of majority sections of people and went ahead with enacting a bill amending the Patents Act then it will be faced with a massive countrywide opposition. “This law of death will not be accepted and we will fight against it with all our strength and will never surrender”, was the core message.

In fact, it looked like the budget session of parliament began with a thunder, caught as it was in its first massive rally outside parliament, and it was Red flags sharing space with banners of organisations of scientists, youth, women and students. Carrying placards saying: ‘No To the Patents Act’, and ‘Caution: India is not for Sale’, the protestors slogans of  “WTO Murdabad”, “Stop Prostrating Before MNCs” rent the air as the procession began from Jantar Mantar. It was barricaded at the Parliament Street police station.

The march to parliament was organised by a score of central trade unions, mass organisations, employees federations in protest against the Third Amendment Ordinance of Indian Patents Act. The organisations which participated included CITU, TUCC, AITUC, UTUC(LS), SFI, DYFI, AIKS, DSF, AICCTU, Navdanya and others.

Addressing the protestors, CITU secretary Tapan Sen blasted the UPA government for amending the ordinance through the back door and charged it of succumbing to the pressure being mounted by MNCs. He also criticised a section of media for trying to confuse the people on this all-important issue. Warning the government that it would amount to selling the interests of the country if a bill is passed by the parliament amending the Patents Act, Sen called for intensified agitations to defeat this attempt. He saw today’s rally as a good beginning for this struggle.

AITUC secretary S N Sharma criticised the Congress party for just paying lip-service to the poor and not actually doing anything. Vandana Shiva, representing Navdanya, explained the dangers of the amendment and asserted that it will be unacceptable. Former Planning Commission member, S P Shukla said that today there was resistance to the patent regime in all parts of the world, particularly after the disastrous effects it had on millions of poor Africans suffering from AIDS. He criticised the Indian government for not being prepared to look at the ruinous impact. AIKS joint secretary N K Shukla highlighted the danger of increase in the prices of medicines, fertilisers, seeds etc due to the amendment.

The demonstration while condemning the hurried step by the government on the plea of compliance with TRIPS declared that 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 on 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 workers debunked the claim of the government that the promulgation of the ordinance was a compulsion for the government to meet the obligation under WTO framework and pointed out that the government did not deliberately made use of the provisions of flexibility available in TRIPS to guard the interests of the country’s industry and agriculture and health requirements and food security of the people.

The rally called upon the toiling and patriotic people to unite and struggle against this retrograde ordinance and build up pressure of the government to scrap the ordinance and formulate appropriate Patent regime in the interests of country’s economy and the people in India instead of patronising the multinational companies to the detriment of national interest.

Later, a delegation of leaders submitted a memorandum addressed to Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee and Rajya Sabha chairman Bhairon Singh Shekawat scrapping the Third Amendment Ordinance of Indian Patent Act and requesting formulation of appropriate patents regime in the interests of people.

Full text the memorandum is given below:

THIS rally of the people from all walks of life viz. workers, peasants, agricultural workers, students, youth, women, science workers and professionals being held on February 26, 2005 expresses grave concern over the action of the UPA government in promulgating the Third Amendment Ordinance of the Indian Patents Act to make a hurried shift over to product-patent regime.

We strongly hold that the patent ordinance is not in the interest of the mass of the people of the country across the sectors.  The product patent regime, in its proposed form, is going to seriously damage our industry and agriculture and allow the multinational companies to widen and harden their grip over 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 1.1.2005 but are already being produced in the country.  Further, all new drugs that are discovered after 1.1.2005 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 of 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. For example, the post ordinance patent regime will allow patenting of computer software. The ordinance provides 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, it will open all software to patenting. This will severely retard software development in our country, thus adversely impacting almost all industries having computer applications besides the computer industry itself.  The Research and Development activities will also be severely constrained and impaired under the new dispensation.

Not only industry, country’s agriculture is also going to be affected in a big way threatening the food security of the country besides the earnings and livelihood of the rural populace. The prices of seeds, pesticides, bio-technical products etc will increase making agriculture more uneconomic which is already facing sharp rise in input cost along with falling product prices. MNCs are already moving fast in patenting our indigenous seeds and many traditional agricultural products and the ordinance conclusively took 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 Patent Act is destined to spell further damage on the country’s industrial and agricultural economy besides endangering the food and the health security for the mass of the populace just to benefit the giant multinational companies and foreign capital!

The plea by the 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 1.1.2005 is ill conceived. The WTO agreement is unjust and the TRIPS is coercive. Besides, there was sufficient room for deferring the change-over to product patenting within the niche of flexibility of TRIPS (vide Articles 7,8,27,3 (b), 31(b), 70.3 etc) and Doha Declaration. The need to fully exploit the niches of flexibility available has been ignored by the government. Instead of availing such provisions of flexibility, the government demonstrated undesirable haste in promulgating the ordinance even without caring for the concrete and workable suggestions put forth by the law commission, experts in the field and the mass organisations in the interests of our people and the economy.

In view of the above scenario, we request you to please intervene so that when the matter will be taken for consideration, by way of a bill in the ensuing session of parliament, the issues and concerns as detailed herein above are taken due care of so that the present ordinance is scrapped and an appropriate patent regime safeguarding the interests of our people, industry and agriculture is formulated.