For more than two hundred years, the world has discussed the issue of whether to continue the process of patenting or whether to do away with it. Developed countries remain polarized for various reasons but nevertheless the pro patent regime continued. The result was a huge volume of patents. The present article explains the implications of excessive volume of patents and conditions under which prior art search fails. This article highlights the importance and necessity of standardization efforts so as to bring about convergence of views on patenting.

Developing countries will now have to battle IP issues related to new agricultural technologies at WIPO instead of WTO.

Gilead Sciences has become the first pharmaceutical company to set up a licensing agreement with the recently-established Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), in a move aimed toward increasing access in developing countries to drugs that treat HIV and Hepatitis B.

Independent India inherited a structure of landholdings characterised by heavy concentration of cultivable areas in the hands of relatively large absentee landowners, the excessive fragmentation of small landholdings, growing number of landless agricultural workers, and the lack of any generalised system of documentary evidence of landownership or tenancy.