Another slip up by India in the trade pact with the U.K.

The Indian-United Kingdom Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) raises various questions about India’s commitments in the intellectual property department of Ceta (Chapter 13). A problematic article in this section is Article 13.6, “Conceptions of Trips and Public Health Measures”, especially the first paragraph: “The parties realize the optimal and optimum path to promote and provide access to drugs.

India’s acceptance of this provision will lead to dilution of its position in two critical issues. The first, unlike the Indian voluntary licensing, has continuously supported the use of compulsory licenses to address the high prices of patented drugs. Secondly, developed countries argued that they should transfer technologies to developing countries with “favorable terms”, industrialization and also to reduce carbon footprints.

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Pricing Problem

High prices of patented drugs are a serious anomaly of the patent system due to excessive rent search by patents. Compulsory licensing of patented drugs can facilitate the production of such drugs and greatly increase the supply of high -priced drugs. This was experienced for the production of anti-canaver medicine, sorafenib tosylate after Natco Pharma was given a compulsory license in 2012. The price fell to less than 8.800 for one month treatment from the number 2,80,428 number 2,80.428 collected by the Medical Patent Owner Bayer Corporation (http://bit.ly/4LVTC4L).

In order to eliminate such excessive rent search examples, India’s legal producers contained compulsory licenses as a significant protection, while changing the Patent Act to comply with agreements on the trade of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Both houses of the parliament unanimously adopted this legislation after carefully handled the provisions of a common parliamentary committee (http://bit.ly/4l7z1u).

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Giving compulsory license

India’s TRIPS Consistent Patents Law allows for a compulsory license to anyone who wants to produce a patented product in India three years after a patent. This license can be given: According to the patented invention, the reasonable requirements of the public are not met; Or the patented invention is not open to the public at affordable prices, or the patented invention is not “processed” in India territory, not commercially exploited in the country (http://bit.ly/4ltsbji).

Patent rules follow the requirement of “work ve and provide the working status of the inventions of patents accordingly. This requirement had to do this until the Indian FTA and the European Free Trade Association were diluted, and India acknowledges that the periodicity of India would not be “less than 3 years (http://bit.ly/4o4ncxu). This dilution is now strengthened with Ceta and eliminates an important ground to give compulsory licenses.

By supporting volunteer licensing to address the problem of access to drugs, India is given as a strong custom of compulsory licensing on the DTO. A coalition of developing countries, including India, gained the right to submit compulsory licenses through the Doha Convention and Public Health Declaration in 2001 despite the difficult opposition from developed countries. The Declaration has the freedom to determine the right to give compulsory licenses and the reasons where such licenses are granted ”(http://bit.ly/3iuwjiw).

Volunteer licenses cannot access affordable drugs due to the weak bargaining position of domestic companies in developing countries against dominant pharmaceutical companies. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) observed that a medical humanitarian organization can use voluntary licensing conditions, pharmaceutical companies, providing restrictions on license areas, including providing various restrictions, including controlling the supply of active drug materials. Therefore, when voluntary licenses are used, affordable access options are endangered (http://bit.ly/3u0j6aq). MSF’s observations have been proven when Cipla’s anti -remedrine medication in India produced under a voluntary license of Gilead Sciences, owner of the medical patent. Remdesivir’s price, which was fixed by Cipla for India, was higher than Gilead accused of power terms in the United States.

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India’s demand will be affected

Ceta weakens India’s demand for technology transfer in various multilateral forums. This request was first made in 1974 with the decision of the new international economic regular (NIEO). The main aspect of NIEO was a call to facilitate technology transfer to developed countries to promote industrialization efforts of developing countries (http://bit.ly/41ejrrl). However, despite the best efforts, little progress in technology transfer has been made.

The frustration of the developing countries was reflected in India’s fourth biennial update report to the United Nations Climate Change Framework Convention in 2024: “Despite important national efforts and investments, obstacles such as slow international technology transfer and intellectual property rights (IPR) prevent it from adopting rapidly. [climate friendly] Technologies ”(http://bit.ly/3h1itfu).

India may lose its demand for climate -friendly technologies from advanced countries, as it endangers its long -standing position in which technology transfer to developing countries should be “favorable conditions”.

Biswajit Dhar is a former professor of economy at Jawaharlal Nehru University. KM Gopakumar Senior Researcher and Legal Consultant, Third World Network

Released – 04 August 2025 12:48