Tuesday, April 5 2005 17:44 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The new Patents law, which was passed by Parliament in the third week of March, came into force today (Apr 5, 2005) with President A P J Abdul Kalam giving his assent.

"President Kalam today signed the Patents (Amendment) Bill. With this, the law comes into force," Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said on the sidelines of a FICCI meeting with the visiting German delegation.

Parliament had passed the law to replace the Ordinance after incorporating 15 amendments, including 11 suggested by the Left parties to provide adequate safeguards to ensure that essential drugs were available at affordable prices.

The new law provides for product patents in pharma and agri-products, which were not allowed earlier. The law, which was brought in to fulfill World Trade Organisation (WTO) obligations, first came in the form of an Ordinance on December 6 last year.

Nath also said that a high-level committee of experts would be set up shortly to look into some of the issues pertaining to TRIPs in the patents law.

He had promised to constitute the committee during the passage of the legislation in the Lok Sabha following the objections raised by the Left Parties.

On the forthcoming Foreign Trade Policy, Nath said that it would lay thrust on marine and pharma sectors to raise exports to $ 150 billion by 2009.

Regarding the new scheme to replace the Duty Entitlement Pass Book scheme, he said that the new scheme has been prepared and inter-Governmental consultations were on to finalise it.