Intellectual Property Rights in Agricultural Research System design patenting

Abstract

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) can be broadly defined as legal rights established over creative or inventive ideas. Such legal rights generally allow right holders to exclude the unauthorized commercial use of their creations/inventions by third persons. The rationale for the establishment of a legal framework on IPRs is that it is a signal to society that creative and inventive ideas will be rewarded. This does not mean that there is no other way of rewarding such ideas or that this system is absolutely necessary, even less sufficient, to reward inventiveness or creativity. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to deny that IPRs do have a role to play in setting up of any such reward system. There are two broad categories of IPRs: one, industrial property2 covering IPRs such as patents, trademarks, geographical indications and industrial designs; two, copyright and related rights covering artistic and literary works, performances, broadcasts and the like. IPRs that do not fit into this classical division are termed sui generis, meaning one-of-its-kind. Such sui generis rights include those covering lay-out designs of semi conductor chips and plant breeders’ rights. This paper will in the next section distinguish the IPRs relevant to agriculture and explain these rights. In Section III the international intellectual property law for these rights will be described. Section IV sets out India's international obligations vis-a-vis her own IPR laws and Section V goes on to an analysis of the public debate in India on the controversial IPRs and the status of the legislation on these. This paper concludes in Section VI with prescriptions for public policy on IPRs and agriculture in India.