Ordinance on Patents issue likely

Move aimed at meeting WTO date

The government will take the Ordinance route to bring about amendments to the Patents Act. Sources in the group of ministers (GoM), constituted to look into the draft Bill, said there were only "minor issues" to be sorted out with the Left parties over the present draft.

The government might also be planning to placate the Left and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the issue of pre-grant opposition, one of the main objections to the draft Bill in its present from.

According to the Left, in the present Bill, the clause for pre-grant 'opposition' has been replaced wrongly by pre-grant 'representation'. The BJP has taken a similar stand on the issue though the draft Bill was in fact framed during the NDA regime.

The Left claims that pre-grant representation is not a tool powerful enough for challenging spurious patent applications as it does not allow the patent to be actually contested but only allows a complaint to be 'represented' or registered.

Official sources in the commerce ministry have, however, said that there is only a "semantic" difference between the two terms and if it satisfies the Left and the BJP, the term can be changed from representation to opposition in the Act.

However, this semantic makeover might not be enough to satisfy the Left, and the now the BJP, which has been insisting that the draft Bill be referred to a standing committee first.

Moreover, the Left parties are still awaiting the government's response to their note on the issue. "We cannot vote for the Bill in its present from. We have given the government a revised proposal on the present draft. We are awaiting the government's response," Nilotpal Basu, CPI (M) Rajya Sabha MP, said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Design Summit, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said: "The Left are entitled to their views. We are talking to everyone on this."

Privately, however, the Left has been aware for a while of the Government plan to push the Bill through the Ordinance route to meet the January 1, 2005, deadline for TRIPS compliance of India's Patents laws and has conveyed to the government that it concurs with this line.

Congress leaders said this was their understanding that while publicly the Left is taking one position, privately, it has no objection to the Ordinance.

There seems to be a tacit understanding among the UPA allies that once the Ordinance has been notified and the Government has at least technically met the TRIPS deadline, the matter of referring the Bill to a standing committee can be dealt with in the Budget Session of Parliament.

The Left leaders said that the government can then submit to the WTO that it had tried its best to get the law amended and use the ruse of a standing committee to study the Bill for another year or two as other countries such as the US have done in the past.

The Ordinance is likely to be notified after December 23, when the Winter Session ends.