WIPO to study proposal on change in patent regime

By P.Sunderarajan

NEW DELHI, JULY 22. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has agreed to study an Indian proposal on an amendment to the International Patent Classification (IPC) regime to protect the rich source of information in Ayurveda and other traditional knowledge systems from being poached.

The proposal will be studied by an international task force, which includes patent experts from the U.S., Europe, Japan and China. The panel has been asked to give its report latest by February next year.

The crux of the proposal is to expand the sub-groups under the IPC system for retrieving information on inventions, so that it will be easier for patent examiners to find out whether claims for patents are based on genuinely new inventions or information already available in the traditional knowledge systems. Currently, while there are over a lakh sub-groups for retrieving information on modern scientific inventions, there are only a few on traditional knowledge. For medicinal plants, for instance, there is only one sub-group. The Indian proposal has been put together by a team of experts set up by the Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy under the Union Health Ministry.

The inter-disciplinary group consists of experts from the Central Council of Research and Ayurveda and Siddha, Banaras Hindu University, National Informatics Centre, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the Controller General of Patents and Trade Mark.

The WIPO decided to set up the task force after a presentation by Dr. V.K.Gupta, leader of the team. Dr. Gupta, who is also the Director of the CSIR's National Institute of Science Communication, made the presentation at a meeting of the committee of IPC experts in WIPO. He will also be a member of the WIPO panel. Protection of the traditional knowledge on medicinal plants in particular has assumed importance in the context of growing interest the world over for Ayurveda and other alternate systems of medicine.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : National
Previous : SC ruling in cheque dishonour case
Next     : Prabhakar's remand extended