National Intellectual Property Rights Policy

The Union Cabinet on May 13 approved the National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy that will lay the future roadmap for intellectual property in India. The policy recognises the abundance of creative and innovative energies that flow in India, and the need to tap into and channelise these energies towards a better and brighter future for all.

The National IPR Policy is a vision document that aims to create and exploit synergies between all forms of intellectual property (IP), concerned statutes and agencies. Seven objectives of IPR Policy are: IPR Awareness: To create public awareness about the economic, social and cultural benefits of IPRs among all sections of society; Generation of IPRs: To stimulate the generation of IPRs; Legal and Legislative Framework: To have strong and effective IPR laws, which balance the interests of rights owners with larger public interest.

The work done by various ministries and departments will be monitored by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP), which will be the nodal department to coordinate, guide and oversee implementation and future development of IPRs in India. IPRs entitle an individual or group to the moral and economic rights of creators in their creation.

Copyright is a legal protection extended to the owner of the rights in an original work of creation. It protects expressions and not the ideas. There is no copyright on an idea. A patent is an exclusive right granted by a country to the owner of an invention to make, use, manufacture and market the invention, provided the invention satisfies certain conditions stipulated in the law.

IPR is required to safeguard creators and other producers of their intellectual commodity, goods and services by granting them certain time-limited rights to control the use made of the manufactured goods, writes www.moneycontrol.com. National IPR Policy will endeavor for a “Creative India; Innovative India.” As regards compulsory licensing (CL), India has issued only CL for a cancer drug.

As per the WTO norms, a CL can be invoked by a government allowing a company to produce a patented product without the consent of the patent owner in public interest. Under the Indian Patents Act, a CL can be issued for a drug if the medicine is deemed unaffordable, among other conditions, and the government grants permission to qualified generic drug makers to manufacture it.