The National Biodiversity Authority has granted permissions to patent Applicants using Indian Biological resource in their inventions for obtaining Intellectual Property Rights. There are several patent applications filed in this category and are pending before the Indian Patent Office.
The National Biodiversity Authority has recently clarified that all such patent applications which are pending but were filed before 1st July 2004 i.e. when the Biological Diversity Act and Rules came into force, would be exempted from taking permission from the National Biodiversity Authority.
The Indian patent office can therefore now clear all the back log for those biological resource involving applications which were filed before aforementioned date and have been awaiting grant but have been withheld only for the sake of pending permission from the National Biodiversity Authority. More clarification with respect to the applications filed after 1st July 2004 is still awaited for speedy grants and permissions.
As published on Patents Rewind.