New amendment to India's 1970 Patents Act will be tabled in the winter session of Parliament after discussions with the alliance partners and opposition parties, The Economic Times New Delhi reported.
"We have to meet our obligations under the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) with respect to the patent legislation by January 1, 2005," Commerce Minister Kamal Nath stated.
The Patents Act was first amended in March, 1999, to introduce the transitional (mailbox) facility from January 1, 1995 to receive and hold product patent applications in the fields of pharmaceuticals and agriculture chemicals till January 1, 2005.
The second amendment was incorporated in June 2002, to meet the obligations relating to the modifications in the provisions concerning issues such as; the term of patent protection, rights of the patentee, and compulsory licensing.
Nath assured that the proposed third amendment would fully take into consideration the public interest, including public health concerns, making full use of the flexibility available in this regard in the WTO agreement on TRIPS.