Left opposes Ordinance

The Left parties do not approve of the government taking the Ordinance route to amend the Patents Act.

A CPI(M)statement said: "The CPI (M) had advised the Government against the hasty passage of the Bill as many measures needed to be taken to protect the interests of the county. The Politburo disapproves of the resort to Ordinance to pass such an important legislation"

Today's was the last in a series of three notes submitted by the Left to the Government at various fora during the past two months.

The CPI said that it was waiting to find out whether any of the Left parties' suggestions had been incorporated in the Ordinance.

In the latest note to the government, the Left opposed the inclusion of embedded software under the patents regime. Among other concerns raised by the Left include the need for a pre-grant opposition clause and the need to comprehensively define an 'invention' as something 'new'.

The Left has also been maintaining that the Government should make use of the provision in the Trips agreement for the protection of the domestic drug industry, discussed at the Doha round of the WTO.

Though the Government was not counting on Left support to pass the Bill in the winter session session of Parliament, the BJP's decision to oppose it in the Lok Sabha, after initially pledging support to its passage, is likely to have forced the Government to take the Ordinance route.