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Drahos, Peter --- "The Jewel in the Crown: India’s Patent Office and Patent-based Innovation" [2009] ELECD 437; in Arup, Christopher; van Caenegem, William (eds), "Intellectual Property Policy Reform" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Intellectual Property Policy Reform

Editor(s): Arup, Christopher; van Caenegem, William

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848441637

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: The Jewel in the Crown: India’s Patent Office and Patent-based Innovation

Author(s): Drahos, Peter

Number of pages: 21

Extract:

5. The jewel in the crown: India's patent
office and patent-based innovation
Peter Drahos
At the beginning of the 21st century Brazil, China and India are generally
talked about as high growth economies, with China and India in particular set
on a path that might potentially see them individually chug past the US econ-
omy in terms of size (see for example, Goldman Sachs 2003). Whatever the
future holds these three countries are presently major economic powers using
measures such as total GDP (see for example, World Bank 2006). All three
countries have a patent law and have begun investing heavily in the creation
of a large modern patent office. In this way they are following a historical
pattern that held true for European powers of the late 19th century and early
20th century in which the modernization of their respective patent offices
followed well after their enactment of patent law (Drahos 2007a).
Of the three countries China is the most advanced down this path. Its patent
office is an International Searching Authority (ISA) for the purposes of the
Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). The patent offices of India and Brazil have
only just been admitted to ISA status (PCT Committee for Technical
Cooperation 2007). This chapter traces the evolution of the Indian Patent
Office (PO) from its colonial origins to its modernization following India's
membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and therefore its oblig-
ations to comply with the Agreement on the Trade-Related Aspects of
...