Commentary/Ashok Mitra
The long arm of the patent laws
It happened just before the United States Congress recessed in
September for the elections. By an overwhelming majority the House
of Representatives passed a resolution. Any breach of a US patent
by any person or entity in any part of the world, the resolution
declared in stentorian style, is tantamount to a breach of US
security: The resolution authorised American security personnel
to proceed against such a person or entity so that due punishment
could be meted out to him/her/it.
Consider the implications. Suppose a transnational corporation,
with its principal base of activity in the United States, smuggles
out some neemor tulsi or parijit plants from
India, engages researchers
in a laboratory in Florida or Nevada to produce a range of herbal
medicines by extracting properties from these plants, rushes to
have these medicines patented with this or that branch of the US
Patents Office, and thereafter claims to have established
exclusive marketing rights to sell the medicines all over the
world.
Now suppose a local apothecary in Rajamundry or Chapra,
altogether innocent of the majesty of American patent legislation
and the global concerns of the US House of Representatives, uses
in its own manner the ingredients of neem or tulsi
or parijat to
produce similar or identical medicine and sells them at one-hundredth
of the price charged by the transitional corporation.
According
to official American punditry, the owner of this local apothecary
would have thereby infringed US patent legislation: as per the
resolution passed by the House of Representatives, American global
security was, as a result, gravely endangered; security personnel
of the great United States of America would now move fast to repair
the damage done.
At this point, a pronouncement about half a dozen years ago by
a circuit judge in some remote corner of the United States assumes
relevance. Agents of the US government, that judgment averred,
have the right to apprehend in any part of the world - and, in
case necessary, even kill - anyone suspected of having conspired
or acted in a manner which adversely affects American security.
Conceivably as a sequel to that judgment, US embassies and consulates
everywhere, including in India, had posted an alluring newspaper
advertisement; all and sundry were urged by the advertisement
to post information they possessed regarding individuals or groups
who they suspected to have been indulging in conspiracy to bring
down the lawfully established government of the United States
of America; cash award up to half a million dollars was promised
for each such worthwhile information.
As far as is known, that American promise still holds. A golden
opportunity therefore could come the way of x, y, or z in Rajamundry
or Chapra to make a quick buck. He or she could duly feel tempted
to report to the US embassy in New Delhi, or to any of US consular
office, on the nefarious doings of the small-time apothecary in
Rajamundry or Chapra, producing low-cost herbal medicines from
neem or tulsi or parijat extracts,
thereby defying a US patent,
thereby breaching US security.
Formidable legal luminaries from the United States would insist
that the apothecary owner was liable to arrest, on Indian soil
itself, by an American security agent, who would also have the
discretion to ship the accused to the United States to stand trial
there.
Should an Indian judge or an Indian police officer intervene
and arrange protection for the apothecary owner, that Indian judge
or Indian police officer would be equally guilty of violating
American security and hence liable to be packed off to the United
States to stand trial. Were s/he to resist arrest, the American
agent would have the right to shoot him or her, on Indian soil,
for the unpardonable offence of breaching American security?
No part of the above narration is a fable. It is an instance of
the network of plans for global domination the world's greatest
power and its cohorts have been dreaming for long and have now
started to execute with a cool determination.
The Marrakesh Treaty signed by a hundred-odd country governments
under American pressure in early 1995 and the new international
agency it has begot, the World Trade Organisation, are intended
to impose the tyranny of the US patents system on the rest of
the world. The pretext is free and untrammeled international
trade; the actual objective is to ensure limitless exploitation
of the resources of the poorer countries. In a regime of so called
free trade, the early birds collect all the worms.
The advanced industrial countries, and the transnational corporations
they have spawned, have the advantage of an early start and first
patenting. With their superior financial clout, they are in a
position to buy outright raw materials or bio-diverisities a poor
country such as India possesses, process and patent products by
making use of these raw materials or bio-diversities and mulct
consumers by marketing these products at fantastically high prices.
Free trade is in no time to be supplanted by a grim world of monopolies
and relentless squeezing of the poor by the rich; the countries
which originally owned these raw materials or bio-diversities would
be precluded from manufacturing products based on these materials
or ingredients; they could do so only with the approval of, and
according to specifications set by, the transnational patentees.
Such is the new charter of international slavery, otherwise known
as the Marrakesh Treaty. The demoralised government presiding
in New Delhi at the time was in a scampering hurry to sign the
treaty. No debate was allowed to take place on the floor of Parliament,
nor did any consultations take place with the state governments.
The Constitution, the explanation was proffered, entitles the
Union Government to sign any international treaty. That constitutional
prerogative does not, however, cover the right to sign a covenant
according to which decisions on the range of goods the country
could produce and sell as well as the price at which the goods
are to be sold would be the prerogative of external agencies.
One problem has nonetheless proved insurmountable for the lovers
of foreign patents. India's patent legislation needs to be amended
if the WTO hegemony and the suzerainty of US patents are to be
firmly established over here. Our Parliament has, till this date,
refused to buckle in though. In matters concerning economic policy,
the new administration in New Delhi is, however, a carbon copy of
the one it has succeeded.
Hemmed in by foreign debt and by the
belief that the nation's further survival hinges exclusively on
incurring more foreign debt, it thinks it does not have too many
bargaining counters.
A great many people within the administration are, in fact, not
interested in any bargaining at all. This lot certainly includes
a few ministers, and quite a collage of senior civil servants.
Even as the last monsoon session of Parliament got going, a senior
civil servant announced to the world that the necessary amendments
to the country's patent laws to make them harmonious with the
WTO conditionalities were ready and scheduled to be passed soon.
His minister had not heard about these amendments, nor had Parliament;
an official press note disowned the secretary's statement.
Barely two months later, yet another senior official doles out
to the press the same kind of story about impending legislations
in Parliament. As on the previous occasion, a ministerial denial
followed.
The permissive society. Secretaries speak out of turn. They are
contradicted. That is all; no disciplinary action is proposed
against them. Meanwhile, the US administration is losing its patience,
so in the US Congress, so too the transnational corporations.
And the Federal Bureau of Investigation is itching to set up office
in India, so as to enable it to pick up such Indian scientists,
researchers, economists, politicians, lawyers, as dare to defy
US patent laws.
The Indian media have made up their mind: they have taught themselves
to love American patent laws. Reports on opposition to the emasculation
of our patent rights will accordingly not find mention in the
press. Resistance groups will have to rely upon surreptitious
notes from the underground. They will soon run the risk, even
in their own country, of being pounced upon by the upholders of
American security.
Dr Ashok Mitra, the wellknown economist and former finance minister of West Bengal, is a
Marxist member of Parliament.
|