In the earlier post, publishing Swaraj, Tejaswini and Praharsh’s comments to the Ministry of Commerce on the proposed Draft Patent (Amendment) Rules, we had extended an open invitation to anyone to share their submitted comments to the Ministry with us, for publication. In response to our invitation, we received comments from the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (IDMA) and Public Citizen. We’re glad to see that some stakeholders are willing to make their comments public and still hope that the Ministry will make all comments public in the interests of transparency.
The IDMA welcomed many proposals within the Draft Rules. However, they expressed objections/ suggestions on the issue of allotting power to the Controller to determine the maintainability of the opposition, levying hefty fees for filing both pre and post-grant oppositions, introducing a new form and levying hefty fees for filing the request for Grace Period under Section 31, and proposed change to file Form 27 once every three years. The detailed comments filed by the IDMA can be accessed here (pdf).
Public Citizen in their comments objected to the changes introduced within the pre-grant opposition mechanism in the form of determination of maintainability and imposition of hefty fees. They also objected to the dilution of the working statement requirement within the Patents Act and suggested keeping the critical information like quantum, value and manufacturing/ import specifics. They also objected to the requirement to file Form 27 once every three years, underlying its importance for assuring transparency and filing for compulsory licenses. They also objected to the proposed amendment with regard to the obligation of informing the Controller about the foreign applications and suggested to mandate filing of the updated information when there are any changes in the status of the corresponding application. Their detailed comments can be accessed here.
Outside of the blog, BananaIP also published their submission to the Ministry, linked here.
Note: If we get any further submissions, we’ll add them to this page.