Patent Procedure In India Special Reference To ‘Farmaceutical' Patents

The patent system conferred monopoly rights on the inventor for a limited period of time.

- Manjunatha N. G

These exclusive rights act as an incentive or reward, which is considered critical to encourage the stimulation of ideas thereby leading to further advances. The Patent Act 1970 as amended and the Patent Rules indicate the procedure to be followed for obtaining patent for an invention in India. The Procedure has been modified keeping in mind the interest of the applicant and also to meet the requirements of the International standards.

Patent is a statutory and monopoly right granted by the Government for an invention for a limited period of time to the innovator in lieu of full disclosure of his invention which excludes others from making, using, selling, and importing the patented product or process for producing that product. Patent is an intangible property that can be exploited unlike other property throughout the world at the same time. Inventions relating to either a product or process that is new, involving inventive step and capable of industrial application and also fulfilling the requirement of categories incorporated in section 3 of the Act can be applied for patent.

At the time of Independence, both product and process patent was prevailed for drugs in India which was governed by the Patents and Designs Act, 1911. It was designed in such way to benefit foreigners than Indians. As a result, there was no growth in scientific research and industrialization in the country and curbed the innovativeness and inventiveness of Indians.