The
Controversial Patent
I have some comments on what Rajan has said regarding Patenting Basmati.
1. According to patent laws that exist in Civilised world (even in
countries other than U.S.), any new combination could be patented,
as long as no prior art exists (i.e as long as no one knows about
such thing. Like for instance, no one can patent some age old medical
practices of india). But if such a thing is not of common knowledge
even in a small part of the world and if it has not been patented
by another organisation already, then the organisation can patent
it.
2. In the Basmati rice case, a three new varieties of Basmati got
by cross breeding Pakistani Basmati and some other rice plant have
been obtained. Thus the three new plants under consideration have
a different genetic code as compared to what the original Basmati
is. So, it can be patented. Anything that has a new genetic code even
if they differ in only place, it is patentable. In case, if I make
a human blood cell which has mutation in only one place, I can patent
it.
3. Regarding issues about whether agricultural or life saving drugs
should be permitted to be patented at all, I would say that they should
be. If a company that spends hundreds of millions of dollars doing
research does not get even a monopoly for a short time, (even though
theoretically it is for about 17 years, generally other companies
come out with a new alternative in a span of three to four years so
it is essentially only for a short time) then I don't see whether
a company will be willing to spend so much money on research. What
is the incentive for a company to do research if not for bigger and
more profitable business?. By not allowing a company to patent and
have a monopoly, what we'll be doing will be allowing other companies
which don't do any research to sell the same thing in a much smaller
price (they don't have to bear the costs of research, the only thing
that affects them is the production and marketing costs). Are we doing
the morally the right thing by denying a concern which has made a
life saving drug ?. As an example, will you be happy if you prepared
for the exams spent hours studying when all your neighbour did was
watch T.V and sports and copied your stuff in the exam and got your
marks?.
In our country, the governments (and the people) talk about unaffordability
to do such research, but we have enough money to have a series of
scams from Harshad Mehta's to UTI to Tehelka. Whatever money we spend
on research we spend it on some research which has no direct concern
or use to the people of India. We have research institutes like the
Indian Institute of Science, IIT's, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced
Scientific Research, Raman Research Institute and Tata Institute for
Fundamental Research where we produce only papers and nothing which
would change any scenario in India. If you ask me, I would say that
we should be doing more research on the dieseases like Malaria, AIDS,
Tuberclosis etc which are of main concern to a lot of indians and
things like waste water management and converting sea water to drinking
water (we have droughts throughout the country), water purification,
flood prevention etc and try to use it or patent it and sell it across
the world and stop doing research like whether you can solve the schrodinger
wave equation of some crazy element like helium or uranium etc or
other equally useless "curiosity" based research.
So, I would say instead of quarelling whether such and such a company
can patent a new breed or not we should do more research on issues
which are of concern to people in India and try to patent them, so
that we as a nation can prosper.
