[Commons-Law] Indian "Bayh-Dole" Bill before Parliament

[Pranesh Prakash]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Dear All,
The Protection and Utilisation of Public Funded Intellectual Property
Bill 2008 <http://bit.ly/pupfip-bill>, apparently drafted by the
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), has been
introduced in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Indian Parliament)
by the Minister of Science and Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal.  There has
much criticism of this Bill even before it was introduced in Parliament,
since it received the assent of the Union Cabinet without so much as a
draft having been released to the public and without benefit of a public
debate.  This was so despite calls for greater transparency by many
leading academics and international groups.

Not just academics, but even the mainstream media have noted the failure
of the Bayh-Dole.  Apart from the fact that the very premise of the
Bayh-Dole Act might be flawed, there is the law of unintended
consequences to ensure that the statute fails miserably.  Indeed, by
many accounts, the act has resulted in a decrease in innovation, while
making taxpayers pay twice for the same research.

Fortune, 2005:
<http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/09/19/8272884/index.htm>
Economist, 2005:
<http://www.economist.com/science/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=5327661>
NYT, 2008:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/technology/07unbox.html?pagewanted=print>
Marcia Angell in NYRB (2004), an excerpt from "The Truth About the Drug
Companies": <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244>

An Indian IP blog, Spicy IP, has been keeping track of the story:
<http://spicyipindia.blogspot.com/search/label/Bayh%20Dole>

Regards,
Pranesh

- --
Pranesh Prakash
Programme Manager
Centre for Internet and Society

T: +91 80 40926283
W: http://cis-india.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAklH8E0ACgkQ7JoSBR1cXwclCQCgv3Uw9qEYhcYSb+BH2eInb35H
gdIAoIRaXN1fqHa7fdG5KrYdacM12ihs
=b3nf
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----