India will strive to forge a united front against an anti-counterfeiting agreement being negotiated by some developed countries, which could threaten exports of genuine off-patent drugs, information technology and other products from emerging markets.
The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) proposed between the EU, the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and Switzerland seeks to widen the scope of protection and sets higher standards for enforcement of intellectual property rights beyond the provisions of the existing multilateral Trips agreement.
“We will hold talks with like-minded countries (read Brazil, China, Egypt etc) and may oppose the ACTA proposal jointly as well as individually by holding talks with countries involved,” a government official said, requesting anonymity.
Apart from affecting the exports from emerging markets, the agreement may also give member countries power to seize and destroy exports while in transit to third countries. Morocco, Singapore and Mexico are also members of the proposed agreement.
“We are looking at the issue and preparing a negotiating brief,” said Amarendra Khatua, joint secretary at the commerce & industry ministry, at a seminar organised by Ficci on Friday. A Ficci paper quotes an EU study on ACTA, which says there would be an infringement if a medicine or product is made for which a company holds a patent in any country, no matter how unclear in scope and validity of the patent is.
Similarly, production of spare parts may violate an unexamined design right with unclear scope and validity may also be considered an infringement.
“The stringent norms being proposed will extend to import, export, in-transit and other situations when goods are under customs supervision,” said TC James, a consultant with Ficci.
This means the problem of wrongful seizures being currently faced by Indian generic drug exporters to Latin America and Africa at European airports will only get compounded as the proposed agreement covers all products and a larger number of countries.
India has complained at the WTO against an EU customs legislation that allows officials to seize consignments of medicines which are off patent in both India and the countries where they are being exported to if there are companies holding patents to it in the EU.
The countries working out the ACTA are trying to scuttle the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) processes, said Raghu Cidambi, advisor, IPR and regulatory matters, at Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance.
Such regulations can definitely be contested at the WTO, said Leena Menghaney, the Indian campaign coordinator, Medicines Sans Frontiers. She said if implemented the agreement would affect exports of several goods, especially medicines and IT products from developing countries.
Such measures can be contested only after they are implemented. At present, India has to try to group up with other developing countries and create a lot of pressure to stop the agreement from being implemented.
Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com