9/9/2014 Intellectual Property Rights protection in South Asian countries | Live Law

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Intellectual Property Rights protection in South Asian countries

On September 5, 2014 by Arvind Kumar

9/9/2014 Intellectual Property Rights protection in South Asian countries | Live Law

http://www.livelaw.in/intellectual-property-rights-protection-south-asian-countries/ 2/7

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Intellectual Property Rights is now considered valuable assets in any major economy as business models of the world over has transformedinto more ideas driven. It is intangible domain of rights, so its protection is unique and technically elaborated. IPRs comprises oftrademarks, copyrights, Geographical Indication, patent, designs rights. Prior to the multination agreement TRIPS these rights used to beprotected through individual manner and most of the times breaches and violations occurred as awareness about these rights was verylow.Since the advent of knowledge economy like ICT industry need for holistic approach to the the protection was felt by the economically

strong countries as their business was spread across different continents and nations.

South Asia-

As far as the south Asian countries it is like late awakening to protect their rights. Traditionally these countries accumulated knowledge andprocedure for any particular branch in unclassified manner which is very much required for protection of their IPR rights at the world stage.Cases of Haldi powder and neem case of India remind our lax attitude in this particular economic sector. Neighboring countriesbordering India have the same problem. Either they have not classified their items as per theTRIPS norms or they own breaching theinternational laws governing the IPRs and penalized for the same.In comparison with EU countries and North American countries, southAsian countries are losing in terms of money on every single day passed by.The reason is that lack of documentation of their processes formanufacturing, lack of data of origination of any novel product.

Indian Case-

Indian Government after signing the TRIPS agreement brought several legislations to protect its IPRs like Indian Patent Act, Trademarkregistration Act, Copyrights Acts etc. as per the articles of TRIPS agreement which was debatable in nature.Developing Countries wasgiven 10 years’ time to tune with the patent regime and asked to make suitable changes in domestic legislations.India has mandated that inlieu of process patent, product patent regime was launched as international pharmaceuticals companies had blamed Indian companies thatthey have taken advantage of process patent and produced some generic medicine by adopting different process and accrued huge loss tothe original companies. Issue of compulsory licenses is also matter of grave concern especially poor and economically under developedcountries of south Asia. In Indian patent Act as per section 48 compulsory licenses to produce life- saving medicine to save the life of

mankind could be given to any party subject to other conditions.

Conclusion-

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9/9/2014 Intellectual Property Rights protection in South Asian countries | Live Law

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Analyzing the development of 20 years or more of the history of IPRs laws it isfound that it is still tilted towards the rich and developed countries at themultilateral agreements and concerns of developing countries and poor countriesare not addressed properly. It is also true that south Asian countries have notfully transformed their knowledge economy into viable IPR regime which is very

vital to sustain the overall economy in globalization.

Arvind Kumar is an auditor at CAG.

Tagged

Copyrights ActsHaldi powder and neemIndian Cases on IPRIndian Patent Act

Intellectual Property lawIntellectual Property Rights protectionIPR in EU countriesIPR in North American countriesIPR in South Asian countries

Trademark registration ActTRIPS

2 thoughts on “Intellectual Property Rights protection in South Asian countries”

1. Monica SharmaSeptember 8, 2014 at 8:36 pm

Good article, everyone should read it and spread. It very important to know because many time we just loose things just because oflack of knowledge.

Reply ↓

2. ved prakashSeptember 5, 2014 at 7:27 pm

its really necessary to spread awareness about this. Good content in concise form.

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