Two Decades of TRIPS Compliant Patents Act: Impact on Transfer and Dissemination of Technology in India

Abstract

The basic intent of TRIPS Agreement is to promote innovation, transfer and dissemination of technology to society and to strike balance in the rights and obligations of patentee. Analysis of the patenting activities in India shows that patent filing by Indians gained momentum in the initial years of post-TRIPS Agreement and finally in the Financial Year 2022-23 outnumbered the filing by foreign applicants in India. Present study is focused on the impact of TRIPS Agreement on transfer of patent embedded technologies from overseas to India as a part of foreign technical collaborations, FDI in India and working of patents granted in India and to examine how far there is dissemination of technical knowledge as advocated under Article 7 of TRIPS Agreement and Section 83 of TRIPS compliant Patents Act, 1970. The study reveals that dissemination of technical knowledge in society is far from satisfactory despite increase in number of transfer of patent embedded technologies from overseas, FDI in India and the patenting activities. Exploration of reasons for this kind of situation calls for a separate study.