Medicine And Medically Related Inventions

Until very recently India prohibited patents on pharmaceutical products. That was a boon for local production of drugs, and also enabled advances in treatments (e.g. single table HIV/AIDS treatment) that were not realistically available to pharmaceutical companies in other countries because the patents on individual components are held by competitors.

In April 2005 the Indian Patents Act was amended to comply with TRIPS. India will now presumably grant and enforce pharmaceutical patents as to both methods of manufacturing and composition, although the process will be slow. There are apparently about 12,000 "mail-box" applications that need to be examined. After January 1, 2006, the deadline for filing the examination request on such applications is 36 months from the date of priority. Indian companies that produced generic versions of drugs for which patent applications were filed prior after WTO accession in 1995 are allowed to continue production, but must pay a "reasonable royalty". Enforcement has already begun. Novartis successfully sued five Indian generic companies for producing Gilvec,™ an anticancer drug, based upon India's TRIPS obligations.