What are the key highlights of the third amendment to the Patents Act in relation to biotechnology?
The Patents Act, 1970 has been recently amended to comply with the TRIPs agreement. One of the salient features of the amended Act is that it provides for product patents unless otherwise excluded. Plants and animals, seeds, including essentially biological processes used for propagating plants and animals are not patentable. Microorganisms, however, are patentable. The area of patentability in relation to microorganisms is not clear. Going by the US and European precedents, it would appear that only such microorganisms that are the result of human intervention would be patentable. Naturally occurring microorganisms are likely to be excluded from patentability, unless the microorganism loses its natural characteristics as a result of human intervention. Synthetic genes (as distinct from naturally occurring gene segments) too would now be the subject matter of patentability. Genetic inventions will include SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism), vectors, recombinant products such as vacci
