Balancing Monopoly Rights and Social Responsibilities through Access and Benefit Sharing instrument under the Biological Diversity Act of India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56042/jipr.v31i4.21208Keywords:
Access and Benefit Sharing Agreement (ABS), Biological Diversity Act, 2002, Bio-Diversity, National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), Patent application, The Indian Patent Act, 1970Abstract
The interplay between the Indian Patent Act 1970 and the Biological Diversity Act 2002 (BD Act), now amended to the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act 2023, has an irrefutable direction regarding obligations and compliance from IPR applicants for access and benefit sharing (ABS). Meeting the compliance of both Acts is unequivocally required to obtain intellectual property rights for any invention in India that utilises the country’s biological resources. A fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources and sustainable use of components of biological diversity is a critical component of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992
In the present study, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) has been taken as an example to give an overview of regulatory compliances under the Patent Law, the Biodiversity Act 2002, for R&D based on material. A sample of 36 patent applications of NBRI filed between 2017 and 2022 by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) was taken, and with National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) executed the ABS agreement in compliance with the BD Act 2002. Some of these applications were licensed to industrial partners with both financial and non-financial commitments. The article provides details of compliance with fulfilling the ABS agreement between CSIR and the NBA by allocating the agreed percentage of license fees, annual royalties, and other mandatory compliances to the National Biodiversity Fund (NBF) for all the cases mentioned herein. The present study provides an overview of the requisite regulatory requirements for domestic and international organisations seeking intellectual property rights for inventions wherein biological resources from India have been deployed. Further, the study also gives some insights into changes that have been brought in the BD Act with the amendment as enforced in 2023.
