-The Economic Times A growing number of countries are adopting India's intellectual property regulations, which give enough flexibility to local companies to produce generic versions of popular drugs to safeguard public health. Although multinational companies have criticised India for being lax in enforcing intellectual property (IP) laws, countries such as China, Argentina and the Philippines are adopting similar provisions. Last month, China amended its IP laws, allowing local companies to produce low-cost versions...

German drugmaker Bayer AG has demanded the withdrawal of the country's first compulsory licence given to Natco Pharma, arguing that a three-fourth reduction in the price of the anti-cancer drug by another Indian firm has made the permit redundant and its patent itself is vulnerable to being revoked. In March, India allowed Natco Pharma to legally make and sell a low-cost version of cancer drug Nexavar at 3% of the original...

The implementation of Patents Act, as last amended in 2005, raises significant issues of immediate concern to patients across the world. INDIA'S Patents Act has an interesting history. Enacted first in 1911 as the Indian Patents and Designs Act in the colonial era, it primarily addressed the interests of inventors, who did not want their inventions infringed upon by anyone who copied them or adopted the methods used to make them....

PROFESSOR shamnad basheer joined the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata, in November 2008 as the first Ministry of Human Resource Development Chaired Professor in Intellectual Property Law. Before this, he was Frank H. Marks Visiting Associate Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the George Washington University law school and a research associate at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre (OIPRC).  He is the founder of several initiatives, including...

Compulsory licence can go a long way to ensure access to cheaper drugs In a momentous development, the Indian patent office issued the ever-compulsory licence in a highly contentious pharmaceutical patent case. The decision is a thumping victory for several patients and health activists who have been fighting what can only be labelled as highly inequitable pricing strategies by multinational drug firms for the past several decades. In August 2011, Natco, an...