The Indian Patents Act 1970 was quite different from the Western patent model of the time. In retrospect, it was a model that took effective notice of the interests of developing countries. It is even more interesting because most of the exclusions in the field of health and food were significant, as these fields are directly connected to the fulfilment of basic needs. The system put in place specifically sought to discipline the prices of essential commodities such as food and medicine to ensure their availability to the greatest number (Sahai 1993). The rationale of the Patents Act 1970 was to promote the growth of the domestic industry at the expense of foreign companies but especially in fields related to basic needs, it specifically sought to control the monopoly rights conferred on domestic producers.

There is a consensus that this strategy was of the Indian Patents Act 1970, for instance, largely successful in the pharmaceutical sector. The associated measures such as price control have had a number of positive impacts on access to drugs. First, relative drug prices have decreased significantly since the 1960s compared to other countries (Cullet 2005: 76). While drug prices in India were among the highest in the world after Independence, they are now among the lowest (Chaudhri 1997). Secondly, the Patents Act also constituted the bedrock of the growth of the domestic pharmaceutical industry that had remained relatively small even after two decades after Independence, and by 1970 only accounted for about 25 per cent of the domestic market. The restrictions on product patents, prices and foreign investment contributed to the rapid development of the industry, which now accounts for 70 per cent of bulk drugs and meets nearly all the demand for formulations (Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, Annual Report 1999-2000). Thirdly, some of the local companies have developed sufficient expertise to produce their own new medicines. This does not mean that the patent system introduced in the 1970s managed to solve the problem of access to drugs for all, which is related to socio-economic conditions. Some recent estimates indicate that only 20 per cent of the population has access to all the essential drugs they need ( Ibid. : 2004-2005).