Punit Gupta (Owner) 02 December 2010

Patent period

what is the period of petent rights in India? is it 20 years according to TRIPS regime or there are any other regulations for the aforsaid statement?

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7 Replies

R.Ramachandran (Advocate) 02 December 2010

Dear Mr. Punit,

In terms of Section 53 of the Patents Act, 1970, the term of the patent is 20 years from the date of filing of the application for the patent.

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Suchitra. S (Advocate) 02 December 2010

Yes, it is 20years as India is a member of WIPO and also obligated to implement TRIPS agreement.

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N.K.Assumi (Advocate) 02 December 2010

I am of the View that the term of patent grant in India is 14 years except for food and drug patent which is 5 years term from the date of sealing or seven years from the date of patent(whichever is shorter) In almost all the other countries as of now the term of patent for all inventions varies from 16 to 20 years.

R.Ramachandran (Advocate) 02 December 2010

Dear Mr. Assumi,

You will agree with me that you have to indicate the extant legal provisions on which your views are based, otherwise it will have no weight.

Suchitra. S (Advocate) 02 December 2010

Despite strong opposition from civil society, in 1994 India signed the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and became in 1995 party to the nascent WTO TRIPS Agreement. By way of TRIPS, India acquired new, far-reaching international obligations on the protection of all types of intellectual property rights that would require modifications to its patent regime by 2005.6 For example, the TRIPS agreement requires countries to extend patent protection for any invention whether products or patents in all fields of technology, for a 20 year term, subject to patentability criteria. Accordingly, in the process of implementing the TRIPS Agreement, India had to revise several of the main aspects of its patent regime. This process was undertaken progressively through several amendments to the Patents Act, 1970. The Patents (Amendment) Act, 1999 introduced exclusive marketing rights (ERMs)and established mailbox applications for patents for pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals from 1 January 1995.

The Patents Act, 1970 was amended for a second time in 1999, and again in 2002 and 2005. The Patent (Third Amendment) Act, 2005, extended product patents to products from all industry sectors, including pharmaceuticals. It also set the term of patent protection to 20 years to meet the TRIPS deadline for January 1, 2005. This closed the option of reverse engineering that largely contributed to the growth of the Indian pharmaceutical industry. It will not be possible to produce the patented product by adopting a different process. Some safeguard measures and flexibilities contained in the TRIPS Agreement were introduced in the patent system to protect public health, such as the provision for compulsory licensing to support access to sources of generic medicines, restricting pharmaceutical patents to new chemical and medical entities, and the introduction of pre-grant opposition to patent applications.