The “Dont Trade Our Lives Away” blog brings us news that the final draft of India’s National IP Policy has been leaked! This is the link they’ve provided: India’s National IP Policy – leaked final draft.
Readers may remember our various posts on this issue including my post titled ‘Who Makes It (National IP Policy) in India? and Shamnad’s post: “Indian IP Policy: Two Tongued?“. I haven’t had time to read the final draft yet but we will bring you detailed comments on it soon. However, as pointed out by the Don’t Trade Our Lives Away blog, there are concerns such as the recommendation of specialised patent courts and a Task Force for enforcement. On the positive side, it does say that “any attempt to treat generics as counterfeit should be resisted and explicitly excludes pharmaceuticals from being granted low-barrier utility models. Reaffirming India’s will to continue using flexibilities under the TRIPS agreement, the policy also does not recognize TRIPS plus provisions such as patent linkage.”
A detailed post will follow soon. In the mean time, if any readers have any comments, please do send them in.