Uganda: Independent States Are Good for Democracy

opinion

A Swiss conglomerate, Novartis AG, has been seeking to lock out the manufacturing in India, of a generic drug called "Gleevec", used for the treatment of a certain type of cancer. Novartis AG, a Swiss company, asserted that it owned the patent rights to the drug; therefore, third parties could not reproduce it.

But this assertion was thrown out by India's Supreme court on Monday, leaving the Indian masses and, indeed, the peoples of the world, truly elated. Registration of patents bestows exclusive rights to holders to commercialize products by denying anyone else a right to copy or imitate them unless it is specifically authorized by the patentee. This enforced practice reflects the law on intellectual property rights that purports to protect inventors and their financiers to recoup the rewards of their research.

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