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Intellect Inc chips in $1.6 b for AP
semiconductor unit
OUR CORPORATE BUREAU (FE),
November 16, 2004
HYDERABAD. NOV 15: Korea-based Intellect Inc, a
semiconductor/chip fabrication company, has decided to set up a
plant in Hyderabad with an estimated investment of around $1.6
billion in two phases. This could be the largest-ever investment
proposal by any company in the Indian hardware sector so far.
This was disclosed by Andhra Pradesh chief
minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy at the Microsoft campus
inauguration ceremony here on Monday. The location would be the
Hardware Park near Hyderabad.
The government is in the final stage of
negotiations with the Korean company and expects that the
ground-breaking ceremony will take place soon, Dr Reddy said.
“We try to promote both software and hardware and the new
hardware project will pave way for AP’s focus on promoting
hardware too in a big way,” Dr Reddy added.
Giving more details, the state’s joint
director (promotion), IT and communications department C K
Veeresh said that the Korean company, promoted by June Min,
former vice-chairman of Daewoo Corporation and former senior MD
of the LG group, has already set up four similar fabrication
plants in China and Taiwan.
To be set up as India Semiconductor
Manuf-acturing Company (ISMC), the Korean company has proposed
to invest $600 million in phase I and another $1 billion in
phase II.
“We are in the final stages of negotiations
with the Korean company and hope the construction work will
begin in 2005,” Mr Veeresh said. Commercial production, if it
goes as per schedule, will begin by end of 2006 or early 2007,
he added.
The project will be developed in joint
collaboration by Intellect with the world’s leading hardware
firms, chip manufacturers and telecom majors and financial
institutions for technical and financial collaboration, Mr
Veeresh added.
Coming up in an area of 50 acres near the
proposed international airport at Shamshabad in Hyderabad, and
expected to provide a direct employment of 10,000 people, the
company will manufacture chips for SIM cards, micro processors
and other applications, including telecom. Based on the firming
up of ancillary units around the fab, the total employment will
go up further, he said.
Unlike other fabs, this project will be a
unique one, the technology and chips have value for over 10
years and are expected to have mass consumption at all levels,
he added.
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Local production to be must for MNC drug
patent-holders
KG NARENDRANATH
Posted online: Thursday, November 18, 2004 at 0000 hours IST
NEW DELHI, NOV 17: In what could be a major setback to
pharma MNCs, the government has decided that patent-holders
would have to manufacture the product in India or forgo monopoly
rights. Import and marketing would not be deemed as ‘working’ of
a patent on Indian territory.
According to official sources, the Patent
Amendment Bill to be introduced in the winter session of
Parliament would make it clear that if the patentee failed to
‘work’ the patent on Indian territory, the compulsory licence
facility could be invoked to bypass the patent, sources said.
Currently, the Patent Act is vague on what
constitutes ‘working of a patent’ in India, allowing MNCs and
domestic pharma companies to interpret the term variously. But
the amendment clearly provides for issuance of compulsory
licence on the grounds of ‘non-working’ of the patent.
Pharma MNC bodies like the US-based PhRMA
had made several representations to the government, saying that
the law must clearly provide that ‘import tantamounts to working
of the patent’.
Local drug companies, on the other hand,
argue that the extant law does not squarely exclude imports as a
means to operate a patent. MNCs could, therefore, take advantage
of the ambiguity on transfer pricing norms and escape the price
control based on landed cost of imports, say domestic companies.
As per the Patent Act, “Patents are granted
to encourage invention and to secure that the inventions are
worked in India on a commercial scale and to the fullest extent
that is reasonably practicable, without undue delay.”
It is further clarified that patents are
not granted “merely to enable patantees to enjoy a monopoly for
the importation of the patented article.” It is silent as to
whether local manufacture would be compulsory for the
patent-holder.
Pharma MNCs like GSK, Pfizer and Abbott
have already shown an inclination to close down their production
units in the country and resort to contract manufacturing.
In this light, the new laws do not augur
well for multinationals.
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Left
warns against `hasty passage' of amended Patents Act
By Our Special
Correspondent (The Hindu)
NEW DELHI, NOV.
25. The Left parties have cautioned the Government against
"hasty passage" of amendments to the Indian Patents Act to make
it Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
compliant.
"We are strongly
of the opinion that any hasty passage of the Bill (amendments
2003), without any informed discussion, will not be in the
larger interests of the country. We give below a list of
amendments that, we feel, need to be incorporated in the
existing Indian Patents Act and the draft Bill 2003. These we
believe are the minimum that need to be done to safeguard
national interests," the parties said in a three-page note
submitted to the Government on Wednesday.
The broad areas
of concern of these parties include patentable subject matter;
differentiating inventions; compulsory licensing; export by a
licensee; transitional agreement and mailbox; royalty payment;
and pre-grant opposition.
The Left parties
said the Government must make full use of the "flexibilities"
available in the TRIPS agreement and recounted the experience of
many countries since the agreement came into force in 1995. They
cited the instance of how an Indian pharmaceutical company was
offering drugs for HIV-AIDS particularly in Africa at vastly
reduced prices whereas global companies were selling them at
20-50 times their actual cost by seeking shelter under laws
mandated by the agreement.
`Reserve term'
On patentable
subject matter, the parties said that the term "invention"
should be reserved for a `new' product or process involving an
inventive step and capable of industrial application. All three
criteria of `novelty,' `inventive step' and the quality of being
"capable of industrial application" must be insisted upon
especially to limit the number of applications and discourage
frivolous claims.
They said the
Indian Patent Act allows patenting of "micro-organisms" and
"non-biological and microbiological processes." Patenting of
these inventions are under mandated review by the World Trade
Organisation since 1999 and in the absence of any decision,
patenting of these should not have been provided for. All life
forms and research tolls for biotechnology should be excluded
from the scope of patentability.
Compulsory licensing
Compulsory
licensing, they said, was an instrument available in the TRIPS
agreement to safeguard the legitimate interest of consumers by
limiting the possibilities of monopolies being created in
different sectors. "Unfortunately the Indian Act has not made
full use" of such provisions unlike Brazil and China which have
passed legislations allowing compulsory licensing in cases where
the patentee does not respond within stipulated time the offer
of reasonable commercial terms and conditions to the patent
holder.
Similarly, the
TRIPS agreement allows export by manufacturers who produce
through a compulsory licence, and suggested that the same be
incorporated in the amendment so that the Indian pharmaceutical
companies could export drugs to developing countries at
relatively lower prices to the mutual benefit of both.
The agreement
also provided for receipt of patent applications through a
mailbox between January 1995 and December 2004, which are to be
examined after January 1. On being granted, the patent would
remain effective for 20 years from the date of application. The
parties said that in cases where production had been started by
any enterprise during the transition period, it should be
allowed to continue production on payment of a nominal royalty
instead of being accused of violating the patent. The quantum of
royalty payment should be explicitly stipulated if compulsory
licensing was issued.
There was no
justification in removing the existing pre-grant opposition from
the Act in the proposed amendment Bill. They said countries such
as Australia, Japan, Canada and the United Kingdom provide for
pre-grant opposition in their laws.
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Overseas patents may need NOC
KG NARENDRANATH (FE)
November 26, 2004 at 0038 hours IST
NEW DELHI, NOV 25: Indians wanting to file for overseas
patents will have to obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC)
from the Centre, according to the re-drafted Patent Bill 2004.
The Bill is going to be introduced in the
winter session of Parliament. The government is awaiting the
report of the Left parties, which have raised many objections to
the Bill.
The government plans to introduce the
mandatory NOC for filing patents in foreign countries as a
safeguard against patenting of technologies that have dual
purpose, one of which could be hazardous. Senior government
officials told FE the NOC would not become a hurdle in the way
of filing of international patents by Indian companies,
institutions or individuals. “The NOC application shall be
disposed of in 90 days,” an official said.
The government also proposes to introduce
patenting of software embedded with hardware in the re-drafted
Patent (Amendment) Bill. The Bill, as originally drafted by the
previous government, did not have this provision. The Bill seeks
to amend the Patent Act 1970 for a third time primarily to meet
the Trips (trade related intellectual property rights)
obligation of introducing product patents in pharma, agrochem
and food sectors. However, it does not tinker with the
‘patentability’ criterion.
Neither does it propose any changes in the
compulsory licensing (CL) provision. CL is a facility available
to national governments under Trips to side-step patents and
license the patented article to a third party under certain
defined circumstances such as national emergency, extreme
urgency and for public non-commercial use.
Sources said the Prime Minister’s office (PMO)
had taken a ‘blanket decision’ not to tinker with any provision
in the Act that conformed to the views of the joint
parliamentary committee (JPC) which dealt with the relevant
issues in detail prior to the second amendment in 2002. “The JPC
had discussed these issues for nearly two years in 40 sessions.
There is no reason for an overarching decision upon the JPC’s
now,” the official said.
A patentable invention is one that is new,
involves an inventive step and is capable of industrial
application. Sections of the domestic drug industry wanted the
Act to explain these terms and restrict patents to new chemical
entities.
Significantly, the government has also
decided to retain the provision for pre-grant objection in the
Act, which the original Bill proposed to dispense with.
Pre-grant objection would be, however, allowed only on one
ground, i.e., patentability.
Again, sections of the Indian drug industry
wanted the objection to be allowed on a host of other grounds
also. “Patentability is a comprehensive term that covers all
possible objections to a patent. Why should there be more
grounds?,” government sources said. They added that the Bill
will also provide for post-grant objection.
At present, the patent controller’s
decision can be challenged only in a court of law. The proposal
is to introduce a two-tier post-grant opposition, one consisting
of appeals to the controller himself and later to the Appellate
Board, and another the route of appealing to a civil court.
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Developments in IP Regime
OUR CORPORATE BUREAU (FE)
October 26, 2004.
Sunil Jose
Bill C-9: Canada's initiative to
implement WTO Decision of 30 August 2003
Canada's Bill
C-9 (An act to amend the Patent and the Food and Drugs Act) will
be the first international attempt to implement WTO General
Council Decision of 30 August 2003.
The Bill
received royal assent on May 2004 and will come into force later
this year. The amendment will allow the issuance of compulsory
licenses to Canadian firms authorizing them to manufacture in
Canada specific patented pharmaceutical products for export to
certain developing and least-developed countries.
The amendment
adds schedules to Patent Act identifying the pharmaceutical
products and importing countries that are eligible under the new
system.
Patent Provisions: India will
soon become a 'TRIPS compliant' nation.
The third
amendment to Indian Patent Act 1970 (The Patents (Amendment)
Bill, 2003) will be introduced before the Parliament during
Winter Session. The Bill once cleared by the Parliament will
make India a 'TRIPS compliant nation' as on 1 January 2005 as
far as patent provisions are concerned.
In respect of
Patent Law, the TRIPS Agreement provides specific time frame to
the WTO members to bring their patent legislations in line with
their obligations under the Agreement.
While mailbox
facility (Article 70.8) and Exclusive Marketing Rights (Article
70.9) were required to be introduced from first of January 1995,
developing countries has time till January 1, 2005 to introduce
product patent provisions (Article 65.4) All other obligations
under TRIPS should have been complied with by January 1, 2000.
In respect of
obligations effective from January 1, 1995, India has amended
the Patents Act, 1970 through the Patents (Amendment) Act, 1999
effective retrospectively from January 01, 1995.
In respect of
obligations from January 01, 2000 India has further amended the
Patents Act through the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2002 passed by
Parliament in May, 2002 and made effective from May 20, 2003.
The third
amendment bill will introduce product patent protection in all
fields of technology as envisaged in Article 27.1
University of California,
Berkeley and Samoan leaders agreed on sharing benefits from
utilisation of Prostratin genes.
On Sept 30, 2004
the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) announced
the signing of an agreement with the Samoan Government to
isolate the gene for a potential anti-AIDS drug (Prostratin)
from the indigenous mamala tree and to share any royalties from
the drugs' sale with the Samoan people. Though Prostratin is a
promising Anti –AIDS drug, its supply is limited since it has to
be extracted from the bark and stem wood of the mamala trees
that naturally produce it.
According to the
University web site the agreement supports Samoa's assertion of
national sovereignty over the gene sequence of Prostratin.
The Agreement
gives UC Berkeley and Samoa equal share in any commercial
proceeds from the genes. The Samoa's 50 percent will be
allocated to the government, to villages and to the families of
the healers who first taught ethnobotanist Dr. Paul Alan Cox how
to use the plant. Agreement also provides for the negotiation
for the distribution of the drug in developing nations at a
minimal profit.
Back in Nov 13,
2001 AIDS ReSearch Alliance of America (ARA) - a Californian
based Non Profit Research Organization, which had an exclusive
license from US National Cancer Institute to develop Prostratin
agreed to return 20% of any commercial profit arising from
Prostratin to Samoan people for helping ARA to discover this
anti-HIV compound. (NCI had patent for Prostratin for its
anti-HIV properties)
Under the terms
of the agreement commercial proceeds from prostratin would go to
the Samoan government, the village where the compound was found
and each of the families of the healers who helped discover it.
Zambia invokes Article 31.b of
TRIPS Agreement; declares AIDS a National Emergency.
Zambia has
declared HIV/AIDS a national emergency from August 2004 to July
2009. The declaration will enable local firms to obtain licenses
to start manufacturing cheaper generic AIDS drugs.
Article 31 of
the TRIPS Agreement permits member governments to authorise any
party to use an invention without the consent of the patent
holder of that invention. This practice commonly known as
'Compulsory Licensing' is subject to certain conditions
specified in Article 31. Prior Negotiation with the patent
holder by the party seeking CL is one among such conditions.
However the Member government may do away with prior negotiation
in case of a 'National Emergency'.
San Marino accedes PCT
San Marino, the
third smallest state in Europe and an enclave in Central Italy
became the 124th Contracting State of the Patent Cooperation
Treaty (PCT). It deposited its Instrument of Accession at WIPO
on September 14, 2004. The treaty will enter into force for San
Marino on December 14, 2004 (Article 63.2 of PCT).
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