Compulsary Licencing: Patient V/S Patent

Compulsory Licensing: The Indian Scenario- Patent v/s Patient ABSTRACT: Compulsory licenses are involuntary contracts between willing buyer and unwilling seller imposed or enforced by the state. A compulsory license is a legal instrument designed to force intellectual property owners to license out their statutorily granted right to interested third parties capable of manufacturing the patented product at cheaper prices. Countries such as Brazil, Thailand and India have used the policy to procure life-saving drugs for millions of patients. However, fear that the policy may reduce long-run access to critical innovations, as it weakens incentives to invent and transfer new technologies abroad. The expansion of Intellectual property regime and aggressive filing of patents by companies has lead to a situation today wherein important and vital products of human use are monopolized by the corporations. Although the grant of IPRs have engendered and facilitated innovation but in some cases the grant of monopoly rights has proved counterproductive and it has impeded the growth of competition. India’s first compulsory licensing order in favour of Natco Pharma has garnered a lot of attention all over the globe, and compulsory licensing has been viewed as a remedy to curb abuse of exclusivity protected by IPRs. This paper will Endeavour to look in to the effect of Compulsory licensing in the Indian Pharmaceutical Market. And try to Analyze whether compulsory licensing would engender competition? The paper also tries to study the effect of compulsory licensing on competition with special regard to Indian legal framework of IPRs and Competition Law. Research Methodology adopted is secondary sources of information which are relied upon articles, case laws and books by various writers, newspapers and opinions of experts are considered. Keywords: Compulsory Licensing, Intellectual Property Rights, Indian Pharmaceutical market

Introduction Compulsory licensing is when a

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