..........................................Course Developed by Dr. Sambit Mallick

In this module, we shall discuss the new institutional context of knowledge production as a consequence of the changes in the patent law in India in compliance with the international context. Intellectual property protection first acquired a significant international law dimension in the nineteenth century with the adoption of important international treaties concerning intellectual property protection ¹. The development of intellectual property protection assumed greater significance since the 1990s. This was due in part to the lack of consensus on the specific structure of an international regime. As a result, over the centuries, the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) system was based on the principle of territoriality allowing individual countries significant margins of appreciation in developing their own laws and policies. In this regard, the adoption of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement in 1994, which will be discussed later, has been a defining moment even though the principle of territoriality has been retained. It has contributed not only to the introduction and strengthening of the intellectual property protection in most developing countries but has also imposed for the first time minimum levels of protection that all member states of the WTO must respect. This can be attributed, in part, to the development of knowledge-based industries including the rapidly developing genetic engineering industry in the developed world.

Notes and References

¹See Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, 20 March 1883 (as revised and amended) and Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, Berne, 9 September 1886.