[Commons-Law] New Patents law comes into force with President's assent

[Ram]

>Press Trust (PTI News) 

New Delhi, Apr 5 (PTI) The new Patents law, which was passed by
Parliament in the third week of March, came into force today with
President A P J Abdul Kalam giving his assent.

"President Kalam today signed the Patents (Amendment) Bill. With this,
the law comes into force," Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath
told reporters on the sidelines of a FICCI meeting with the visiting
German delegation.

Parliament had passed the law to replace the Ordinance after
incorporating 15 amendments, including 11 suggested by the Left
parties to provide adequate safeguards to ensure that essential drugs
were available at affordable prices.

The new law provides for product patents in pharma and agri-products
which were not allowed earlier. The law, which was brought in to
fulfill WTO obligations, first came in the form of an Ordinance on
December 6 last year.

Nath also said a high-level committee of experts would be set up
shortly to look into some of the issues pertaining to TRIPs in the
patents law.

He had promised to constitute the committee during the passage of the
legislation in the Lok Sabha following the objections raised by the
Left Parties.

On the forthcoming Foreign Trade Policy, Nath said it would lay thrust
on marine and pharma sectors to raise exports to 150 billion dollars
by 2009.

Regarding the new scheme to replace the Duty Entitlement Pass Book
scheme, he said the new scheme has been prepared and
inter-governmental consultations were on to finalise it. PTI
 
   

-- 
Prabhu Ram,
Max-Planck-Institut for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law,
MarstallPlatz 1, 
80539 Munich
GERMANY

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