Business Economics & Services Team (BEST)
US IPR Group's Meeting with Indian Higher Judiciary Thwarted-Does it Augur Well?
The raging debate today is whether the pressure groups are allowed to meet the judiciary to explain their views. The case in point is the effort of the US IP body -Intellectual Property Owners' Association -to meet the higher judiciary -Delhi High Court judges and the Intellectual Property Appellate Board(IPAB) was postponed presumably because of the pressure exerted by activist groups in India consisting of patients groups, social and health activists and lawyers. The IP group from the US has already met the officials deling with IP related issues in the government and is reported to have aired their views and perceptions about the working of IP legislation in India, the pitfalls and how they can be toned up to encourage flow of state-of-the -art technologies to India.
A lot of views have expressed in open for and against such meetings of pressure groups with the higher judiciary.A shade of Indian public opinion feels that such meetings are healthy since the industry representatives will be able to explain to the judiciary their side of the concern. Having regard to the fact that IP laws and rules are relatively of recent origin in India, they feel that such high level interactions will enable the judiciary to keep abreast of the latest thinking on the issues governing the laws. It is a fact that many in the higher judiciary were not sufficiently oriented or grounded in such laws during their days in the law school. The same is the case with application of economic laws to legal conundrums. A large part of laws governing competition, anti-dumping, taxes, etc. have strong economic base. For instance, the methodology for measuring the injury in an anti-dumping case is purely on the basis of economic calculations based on econometric models.
The new entrants to the judicial service or the new advocates passing out from the known law schools, undergoing the five year integrated course may be aware of such techniques and postulates. But such people reaching the higher layers of judiciary may take some more time. In the given situation, there is no harm in allowing the existing people in the judiciary to pick up some knowledge through interactions either with the specific interest groups or taking part in seminars and workshops held in other places. I would go a step further in suggesting that the relatively younger judges should be given sabbatical leave for honing up their skills in areas where they did not get any orientation during their law school days.Another proposal worth considering is calling social activists also for such interactions, provided that the deliberations are free from verbal attacks on each other.
Understandably, there is a mistrust between social activists and the judiciary. Perhaps, this could be more on account of the lack of interface between the two. Social activists often quote the Novartis case decided in 2011, when a judge had to acquiesce himself when it was pointed out that he attended a seminar or workshop abroad mostly funded by the pharmaceutical major was a sponsor. There is a solution for obviating such unsavory occurrences by state sponsoring such trips of the judges. The entrie expenses have to be borne by the state.
Undeniably, IPR issues will occupy a significant quantum of court time in the coming years. Awareness about patents, trademarks, copyrights etc. are gradually percolating to the grassroots. Pharma companies are not alone in their fight against the Indian IPR regime. Of late, electronics and telecom companies from the US have aired their concern about the indiscriminate use of compulsory licensing and data protection. They are also taking their stand for a higher period of IPR protection in India. In the given environs, our judges should be oriented in these specialized laws and at the same time reasonable measures should be taken to ward off the perception that the judiciary will be pressurized to take lenient measures, if interactions take place between judiciary and the pressure groups.
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