Govt undecided on Mashelkar report on patent laws: Ashwani

New Delhi, Feb 27 (UNI) The Government today said it was yet to decide whether to accept or reject the recommendations of the technical expert group on Patent Law Issues headed by Dr R A Mashelkar which has got embroiled in a controversy over allegations of plagiarisation.

Stating this in a written reply, Dr Ashwani Kumar, Minister of State for Industry, told the Lok Sabha that the Chairman of the technical expert group had requested the Government by a letter dated the 19th February 2007 to allow it to "withdraw" the report.

The report has also drawn the ire of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance which has represented to the Government to reject the report and ignore the recommendations of the technical expert group.

While favouring provision of drugs at affordable prices to the people, the report calls for detailed guidelines for examining patent applications in the pharmaceutical sector.

The technical expert group, which submitted its report on December 29, 2006, was of the view that "it would not be TRIPs (Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) compliant to limit granting of patents for pharmaceutical substance to new chemical entities only".

The Mashelkar Committee report also states that, "excluding micro-organisms per se from patent protection would be violative of the TRIPs Agreement." UNI SD LS DB1852