Seed Health Management for Better Productivity - Govind Ballabh ...

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(Seed Health Management for Better Productivity)Seeds: Intellectual PropertyH.S. ChawlaDepartment of Genetics and Plant Breeding, G.B.P.U.A.&T., Pantnagar-263145 (Uttarakhand)The WTO was established on 1 stJanuary 2005 and is responsible for making andenforcing rules for trade between nations. WTO marks a major change in global trade rules. As anorganization, it replaces the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades (GATT), which had been inexistence since 1947. The Eighth Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations under GATT, whichstarted in Uruguay in 1986, was concluded in 1994, leading to the creation of WTO as the newpermanent international trade organization. The role of WTO is much more extensive than that ofGATT, which dealt with trade in goods. Apart from goods, the two other broad areas that WTOcovers are services and intellectual property, which previously belonged to the domestic domain.Accordingly, WTO administers not only the Multilateral Trade Agreements (MTAs) in goods butalso the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the Agreement on Trade RelatedAspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which came into existence with WTO. All theagreements annexed to the Agreement establishing the WTO were signed as part of a packagedeal. Member countries did not have the option of choosing some and rejecting others. Anotherimportant difference with the erstwhile GATT is that WTO has a stronger compliance mechanismthan the GATT. A member’s failure to meet the obligations can invoke retaliation acrossagreements and sectors (Chawla, 2007a).As one of the WTO agreements, TRIPS is binding on all member countries of WTO. TRIPSaims at establishing strong minimum standards for intellectual property rights (IPRs). IPRs can bedefined as the rights given to people over the creation of their minds. They usually give the creatoran exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time. Intellectual propertyincludes copyrights, trademarks, geographical indications, industrial designs, integrated circuitsand trade secrets (Chawla and Singh, 2005). The protection of IPRs is binding and legallyenforceable.IPRs have been created to ensure protection against unfair trade practice. Owners of IPare granted protection by a state and/or country under varying conditions and periods of time. Thisprotection includes the right to: (i) defend their rights to the property they have created; (ii) preventothers from taking advantage of their ingenuity; (iii) encourage their continuing innovativeness andcreativity; and (iv) assure the world a flow of useful, informative and intellectual works.PatentsA patent is a government granted exclusive right to an inventor to prevent others frompracticing i.e. making, using or selling the invention. A patent is a personal property, which can belicensed or sold like any other property. The purpose of a patent is to encourage and develop newinnovations. The Patent Law recognizes the exclusive right of a patentee to gain commercial- 50 -
(Seed Health Management for Better Productivity)advantage out of his invention. There are three criteria to issue a patent for the innovation (Chawlaand Singh, 2007).i. Novelty: The inventor must establish that the invention is new or novel. The noveltyrequirement refers to the prior existence of an invention. If an invention is identical to analready patented invention, the novelty requirement is not met, so a patent cannot be issued.ii. Inventiveness (Non-obviousness): It is an invention and not merely discovery. It is non obviousto one skilled in the field. The non-obvious requirement refers to the level of difficulty requiredto invent the technology. If an invention is so obvious that anyone having an ordinary skillwould have thought of it, then it does not meet this requirement.iii. Usefulness (Industrial application): It has a utility or is useful for the society. The usefulrequirement refers to the practical use of invention. If an invention provides a product that isrequired or needed in some manner, then it meets this requirementIn the patent adequate disclosure should be made so that others can also work on it. Itshould have the features: i) be a written description; ii) enables other persons to follow; iii)adequate and iv) deposit mechanism.The present law, Patents Act 1970, amendment 2005 is effective from January 1, 2005.Product patents on all items including food, agro-chemical and pharmaceuticals have also beenallowed making the Patents Act fully TRIPS compliant.The patent system was developed as a means to reward inventions which would be usefulto the society. However, in order to ensure the interests of society, as per the Indian Patents Act,certain things have been excluded from the purview of patentability. The sections relevant to plantmaterial and agriculture which are excluded from patentability are:Section 3(h): a method of agriculture and horticulture.Section 3(i): any process for medicinal, surgical, curative, prophylactic (diagnostictherapeutic) or other treatment of human beings or any process for a similar treatment ofanimals to render them free of disease or to increase their economic value or that of theirproducts.Section 3(j): plants and animals in whole or any part thereof other than microorganisms butincluding seeds, varieties and species and essentially biological processes for production orpropagation of plants and animals.Section 3(p): an invention which in effect, is traditional knowledge or which is an aggregationor duplication of known properties of traditionally known component or components.Further the mere discovery of any new property or new use for a known substance or themere use of a known process, machine or apparatus unless such known process results in a newproduct or employ at least one new reactant is not patentable. Also a patent claim for a substanceobtained by merely mixing ingredients resulting only in the aggregation of the properties of thecomponents is not a patentable invention. However, in India, method for rendering plants free of- 51 -
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potential. An improvement in qualit
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9. Session Arrangement CommitteeDr.
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9. Dr. Pradip Kumar BorahSr. Scient
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TRAININGONANNEXURE-IIISEED HEALTH M
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ANNEXURE-IVCENTRE OF ADVANCED STUDI
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SundayApril 6MondayApril 7TuesdayAp
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TuesdayApril 15WednesdayApril 16Thu
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