A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted to the innovator to safeguard his interests for the next 20 years or so, when no one else can copy the product or has to pay royalties to do so. The whole framework behind this was to ensure that the innovator gets advantages from monitoring and being the pioneer in their research and development, to make sure that people have incentives to do more research and that new technologies keep coming to markets for it. welfare of humanity. Little did the creator of patent law know that it will be used to stunt growth, create monopolies, be used to contradict / compress or eliminate competitors, and as a means of gaining wealth.
But it has been degraded to a level where a company can simply discuss new features and file a patent for them. The result is that many companies make millions and millions not because they make such quality products, just because they were the first to come up with an idea. Today’s multinationals don’t shy away from extracting exorbitant amounts in copyrights, license fees, lawsuits, and settlements. A single new product results in the use of dozens of old patents (with their licensing fees) and the creation of two dozen more patents. A patent is not supposed to be for the way you scroll the content on an iPhone or the number of image processors within a single Kodak camera. Of course, the patent can be for the piece of hardware, the circuit, or the written code. But, if someone else can produce a similar or better result with their own code, hardware, or circuitry, that doesn’t make you responsible for paying the other company.
Law firms, without understanding the nuances of technologies, blindly approve patents and create a ground for patent wars.
It is not surprising to see the world’s oldest and largest manufacturer, Nokia, battling new niche premium mobile maker Apple over the patent war. Nokia sued Apple for the use of signaling techniques, Apple responded for the use of scroll bars, and Nokia again filed a new lawsuit against Apple’s iPad. The war is similar to the situation where Kodak sued Apple and Apple contradicted Kodak.
This war is over patents, but not because these companies are hampering innovation or have been unable to recoup their research and development burdens due to each other’s patent infringement. This war is totally based on greed, greed earns more and eats the profits of others. Finally, the two of you will make an out-of-court settlement, something like, you scratch my back and I scratch yours.
Perhaps Indian companies can also learn from these multinationals and start building a lot of patents. That way, the big telcos can just sit back and earn royalties. Poor Bharti Airtel, if Mr. Sunil Mittal had filed a patent for ringtones or missed call alert service, Airtel would have crossed all its barriers in terms of growth and would have been the largest telecommunications company in the world. Along similar lines, if Infosys had patented its global delivery model, it could have easily eliminated competing companies and ruled the IT business abroad. No matter how ridiculously stupid the above ideas sound, the history of US patents is full of such applications and most of them are also accepted.
So if we knew day by day that we cannot make even board games without paying royalties, we could have patented a die, which has been used and discussed in India since the times of the Mahabharata.
What is urgently required is the formation of a good panel that will do a thorough investigation before approving the patent and constantly review any approved patents. If the company filing the patent does not use it in the next 3-5 years, the patent is null and void, if the patent appears irrelevant after 3-5 years, then it should be discarded. The same should be done if the company applying for the patent has recovered all research and development expenses associated with the patent and all previous failed trials and has already made significant profits from them. If the patent filing company continues to license its patents to other companies, the patent should expire well before the 20-year period. Even if one of the above rules materializes, the patent market will be much more regulated and there will not be such a high exploitation of the patent system.
So when RiceTec applied for a patent for Basmati rice, the first question would have been why did they want to use the word Basmati, the premium breed of rice from India and Pakistan, which is the most popular and expensive. Further investigation would have revealed that their genetic breed has extra-long length, width and fragrance qualities that are associated with the traditional Basmati breed harvested near the Himalayas. Following such findings, they were allegedly questioned about the use of the brands ‘Texmati’ and ‘Kasmati’ (name that sounds similar to Basmati) labeled to mislead buyers. Once the whole case was made, the company should have been forced to stop selling any kind of rice altogether.
But, none of the above action points will ever be taken in a country where any corrupt company can pressure the government that governs the country and force it to add new mandates in the law or amend the law in its favor.