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Communists push passage of India's patent bill By Indo-Asian News Service

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New Delhi, March 22 (IANS) A controversial Patent Amendment Bill, that had drawn protests even in African countries as it was feared it would lead to rise in costs of cheaper India-made generic drugs, was passed amid protests in the lower house of parliament.

Even as the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) pressed for the bill's reference to a parliamentary panel and staged a walkout, the government managed to get the support of Left parties and secure the passage in the Lok Sabha.

"There were five-six areas where we wanted changes. Some safeguards are also in place on life-savings drugs. We are, therefore, supporting the new regime," said Prakash Karat, politburo member of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

The bill seeks to replace an ordinance promulgated in December to meet the Jan 1 deadline to recognise product patents, enable the grant of compulsory licences for export of medicines and modify rules on exclusive marketing rights.

These provisions are part of India's commitment to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) under the pact on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights, but there were fears mainly over its likely impact on prices of drugs and medicines, especially those for AIDS.

The patent bill originally had an enabling provision that required poor nations with insufficient or no manufacturing capacity to grant compulsory licence to Indian companies for import of drugs to meet emergent public health situations.

This provision has now been amended to help these least developed countries, a number of them in Africa. They are no longer required to issue a compulsory licence to an Indian firm to import patented drugs from the country.

The Indian government can allow such exports even if the importing country merely authorises or notifies its requirement.

Other changes relate to areas like definition of inventiveness, new inventions, royalty and the raising of objections before the grant of a patent instead of afterwards.

The bill was to have been debated and passed Monday but this was deferred to Tuesday to enable the government and the left iron out their differences.

Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said the new legislation would not affect domestic prices as 97 percent of the drugs in the Indian market were already off patents, including 350 live-saving essential drugs.

But rights groups said a patient of AIDS in poor countries who pays some $20 a month for treatment with generic medicine could end up coughing up $395 for the branded anti-retroviral drugs because of some provisions in the new legislation.

There were protest marches in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, countries with large numbers of HIV/AIDS patients, who feared higher cost of drugs following passage of the patent bill in India.

"The life and health of hundreds of thousands of people globally depends on the decisions taken in India this week," said Ellen 't Hoen of the Paris-based Doctors Without Borders, a health and medical aid group.

Hoen, who had been gathering support in India against the new legislation, said close to 50 percent of an estimated 700,000 HIV patients in poor and developing countries depend on Indian drugs for treatment.

But the commerce minister said: "The 12 anti retro-viral drugs, mostly used for AIDS and made in India, cannot be patented. They are pre-1995 inventions. India will continue to manufacture, use and export them without hindrance."

The bill now goes to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house, before going to the president for signature for it to become law.

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