Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

The Agreement sets out minimum standards to be adopted by the parties, though they are free to provide higher standards of protection. A transition period of five years is available to all developing countries to give effect to the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement. This period ended on 1.1.2000. No transitional period is available, however, for grant of national treatment and most-favoured-nation treatment. Countries that did not provide product patents in certain areas of technology as on 1.1.1995, can delay the grant of product patents in those areas for another five years i.e. upto 1.1.2005.

Where a country does not make available patent protection for pharmaceutical and agricultural chemical products as on 1.1.1995, they have to provide a means for accepting applications for such inventions (mailbox), apply applicable priority rights and provide exclusive marketing rights (EMRs) for such products. The EMRs have to be provided in India only if a set of conditions have been met, i.e. where a patent application has been filed after 1.1.1995 in any WTO Member, patent and marketing approval granted in that Member country, an application has been filed in the mailbox in India and marketing approval obtained in India. The EMR is available for five years from grant or till the patent is granted or rejected, whichever is earlier. The Patent (Amendment) Act, 1999 was passed in March 1999 to provide for mailbox and EMR facility.