IPR and patents

Biotechnology inventions used to come mostly from public laboratories and were shared freely. Today, much innovation is proprietary: owned by companies and protected by intellectual property rights (IPR), which give the inventor control over its use for a time. Under the World Trade Organisation's TRIPS Agreement, IPR became enforceable internationally.

TRIPS covers many kinds of intellectual property: copyright and related rights, trademarks, geographical indications, industrial designs, patents, plant breeders' and farmers' rights, biological diversity, the layout of integrated circuits, and undisclosed information (trade secrets).

Patents in India. The Patents Act 1970 came into force on 20 April 1972, replacing an older Act of 1911. It followed the recommendations of the Ayyangar Committee, which allowed only process patents (on a method of making something) for medicines, food and chemicals, not patents on the product itself. This helped Indian companies make cheaper versions of drugs by new processes. As a member of TRIPS, India amended the Act; the 2005 amendment deleted Section 5, allowing product patents in biotechnology, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

To be patented, an invention must meet three criteria:

• Novelty: it must be new.
• Non-obviousness (an inventive step): it must not be obvious to an expert in the field.
• Utility: it must be useful.

It must also not appear in Section 3's list of things that are not inventions, and inventions involving DNA must not offend public order or morality.

Only inventions can be patented, not discoveries: finding something that already exists in nature is not inventing it. In biotechnology, cloning methods have become so easy that judging whether an invention is 'obvious' has become harder.