PRESS RELEASE FROM THE RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND ECOLOGY | Director Dr. Vandana Shiva | October 25, 1999
The case challenging the Patent (Amendment) Act, 1999 which seeks to offer Exclusive Marketing Rights (EMRs) to Corporations, filed by Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), Azadi Bachao Andolan, Lok Shakti Abhiyan, Bhartiya Kissan Union (Ambavat), and People's Union for Civil Liberty (PUCL) was heard today before a three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, Dr. A.S. Anand. The Government's justifications of the haste in pushing through amendments to the Patent Act, 1970 in order to grant Exclusive Marketing Rights (EMRs) on the basis of foreign patents, has always been the need to meet the international obligations under the TRIPS Agreement of WTO. As the Attorney General stated again, the Patent Amendment was necessary "to send the right signals to the world".
However the TRIPS Agreement is itself up for review in 1999, and the process is supposed to begin at the WTO Third Ministerial Conference at Seattle in November-December 1999. The Counsel for the petitioners, Ms. Indira Jaising informed the court that many developing countries including Sri Lanka, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Venezuela, Jamaica have already taken steps to initiate the TRIPS review and have put in their position papers calling for the review process to be completed before the implementation of TRIPS. Many of the interventions in the TRIPS review process by countries of the developing world raise issues similar to those highlighted in the petition in the context of India. In spite of being a developing country leader, and in spite of having informed the public that India has started interventions in the review process, no steps have been taken by the Government of India so far to ensure that TRIPS is amended to suit our interest and our context. India is therefore lagging behind other developing countries in protecting its national interest and public interest.
In the light of this information provided by the petitioners, the court also asked the Government of India to place on record the steps it is taking with regard to the upcoming review of TRIPS which begins in 1999 at the WTO Ministerial meeting at Seattle.
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court directed that Notices be issued to the four ministries of Commerce, Agriculture, Health and Environment and Forest in addition to Ministries of Industries and the Ministry of Law, Justice and Company affairs. The latter two are already impleaded as respondents in the original petition.
The Supreme Court also put on record the Attorney General's statement to the effect that no applications for EMRs have yet been received. Preventing the grant of EMRs was one of the prayers of the petition, since the opening of monopoly markets in the area of food and medicine would have been seriously detrimental to the public interest, especially the rights of the poor to have access to basic needs.
The Government of India has to file its reply within the next eight weeks.
