A Glimpse Of Recent Developments In Patent Arena

Introduction

The US Trade Representative 301 Report found that Indian IP regime favors the native and therefore, the chances of US downgrading India in this report was most likely.¹ However, the Indian government refused to participate in US unilateral investigation while defending its IP regime. Essentially, India is compliant with its commitments under TRIPS and has used flexibilities which are available to WTO members and that is entirely within the limit and commitments made by India under TRIPS and WTO agreements. India is also gradually aligning its IP regime to the global regime. In the domain of patents, India became a contracting state to the Patent Cooperation Treaty ("PCT") on December 7, 1998 and this heralded an era of regulatory and procedural changes. Now, the Indian Patent Office ("IPO") enjoys the privileges enjoyed by the patent offices of other developed nations. The recent unprecedented decision of granting compulsory license for manufacturing