No pills for poor people? Understanding the disembowelment of India’s patent regime

The recent amendment to the Patent Act, 1970 brings India into full compliance with its obligations under the TRIPs Agreement, in particular allowing for product patents in the area of pharmaceuticals and agrichemicals. This amendment, the third to the 1970 Act, was characterised by a relatively muted rhetoric and a remarkable level of shared consensus amongst campaigners and critics. Focusing largely on domestic compulsions, as opposed to the global, the paper explores whether the shared consensus sets too narrow an agenda for patent reform. The paper suggests that the limits to implementing TRIPs are equally on account of ambivalence within the government with respect to intellectual property and the changing self- interest of sections of Indian pharma. Thus, despite a favourable international climate in the area of intellectual property (read Seattle, Cancun and Doha), the patent reform in India has been doubly constrained by the narrow agenda and domestic factors

Geneva rhetoric, national reality: implementing TRIPS obligations in Kenya

The article is about implementing obligations to article 27.3(b) of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property. Using Kenya as a case study, the article seeks to explore how the latitude and space available in article 27.3(b) has been translated into the domestic architecture of law. At the TRIPS Council, Kenya locates article 27.3(b) in a wider frame of distribute justice using norms and principles in other multilateral agreements. However, its domestic law fails to reflect this rhetoric. As such, the latitude and space in article 27.3(b) was diminished by Kenya’s accession to UPOV

Geneva rhetoric, national reality : the political economy of introducing plant breeders' rights in Kenya

The article is about implementing obligations under Article 27.3(b) of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS). However, concerned with the fragmentation of international law in a globalised world, the article uses Kenya as a case study to interrogate the apparent choice and latitude in Article 27.3(b). At the TRIPS Council, Kenya has sought to locate Article 27.3(b) within a wider frame by adroitly norm-borrowing, and it canvassed for integrating norms and principles from other multilateral agreements into TRIPS. Yet, when introducing plant breeders' rights into domestic law, Kenya fails to either explore the apparent latitude or deliver on its rhetoric in Geneva. I explain this decoupling between Geneva rhetoric (ritual) and domestic law (behaviour) as another symptom of what Steinberg [(2002), ‘In the Shadow of Law or Power? Consensus-Based Bargaining and Outcomes in the GATT/WTO’, International Organization, 56 (2), pp. 339–74)] characterises as ‘organised hypocrisy’ of the World Trade Organisation. In demonstrating that fragmentation in global legal architecture may not automatically emerge in domestic law, the article draws out the significance of attending to a domestic political economy of law-making

R&D Appropriability and Planned Obsolescence: Empirical Evidence from Wheat Breeding in the UK (1960-1995)

Plant breeders face a unique appropriation problem - plants are reproducible, genetic information is heritable and seeds can be multiplied. The paper uses indicators of varietal age as a proxy for durability to examine strategies of planned obsolescence. Using wheat breeding in the UK, evidence of strategies of planned obsolescence is confirmed. This is then corroborated with evidence of tendencies towards increased proliferation of varieties on the market and breeding strategies that focus on incremental productivity improvements (i.e. increased efficiency) and narrow and limited disease resistance (i.e. reduced durability).Planned Obsolescence, R&D appropriability, Innovation, Plant Breeding, Crop Production/Industries, L13, O31, Q10,

Aerial Vehicle Tracking by Adaptive Fusion of Hyperspectral Likelihood Maps

Hyperspectral cameras can provide unique spectral signatures for consistently distinguishing materials that can be used to solve surveillance tasks. In this paper, we propose a novel real-time hyperspectral likelihood maps-aided tracking method (HLT) inspired by an adaptive hyperspectral sensor. A moving object tracking system generally consists of registration, object detection, and tracking modules. We focus on the target detection part and remove the necessity to build any offline classifiers and tune a large amount of hyperparameters, instead learning a generative target model in an online manner for hyperspectral channels ranging from visible to infrared wavelengths. The key idea is that, our adaptive fusion method can combine likelihood maps from multiple bands of hyperspectral imagery into one single more distinctive representation increasing the margin between mean value of foreground and background pixels in the fused map. Experimental results show that the HLT not only outperforms all established fusion methods but is on par with the current state-of-the-art hyperspectral target tracking frameworks.Comment: Accepted at the International Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops, 201

Context and ambiguity: a comment on amending India's patent act

In implementing its patent-related obligations to the TRIPS Agreement, India decided to use the optional additional transitional provisions in Article 65(4). Thus, delaying the introduction of product patents in exempt technologies, notably pharmaceuticals, till 1 January 2005. Ostensibly, this gave it the opportunity to exploit changing circumstances to and emergent views on TRIPS-implementation; in particular exploring new interpretations to residual flexibility in TRIPS and any continuing legal ambiguity in TRIPS obligations. In terms of the latter, the Panel Report in Canada – Patent Protection of Pharmaceutical Products is pertinent in having exhibited rare reticence in stepping back from defining the principle of non-discrimination in Article 27(1), TRIPS Agreement. While maintaining legal ambiguity, this reticence also provides space for law-making and regulatory diversity. The article reviews the three amendments to India’s Patent Act, 1970 and finds mixed use of residual flexibility and some evidence of efforts to explore legal ambiguity. Thus, despite a favourable climate to TRIPS implementation and an active transnational access to medicine campaign, legislators in India have demonstrated a degree of caution. The article concludes that this caution is best explained in terms of deepening ambivalence concerning intellectual property within the government and the changing economic interests of sections of Indian pharma

Learning representations in the hyperspectral domain in aerial imagery

We establish two new datasets with baselines and network architectures for the task of hyperspectral image analysis. The first dataset, AeroRIT, is a moving camera static scene captured from a flight and contains per pixel labeling across five categories for the task of semantic segmentation. The second dataset, RooftopHSI, helps design and interpret learnt features on hyperspectral object detection on scenes captured from an university rooftop. This dataset accounts for static camera, moving scene hyperspectral imagery. We further broaden the scope of our understanding of neural networks with the development of two novel algorithms - S4AL and S4AL+. We develop these frameworks on natural (color) imagery, by combining semi-supervised learning and active learning, and display promising results for learning with limited amount of labeled data, which can be extended to hyperspectral imagery. In this dissertation, we curated two new datasets for hyperspectral image analysis, significantly larger than existing datasets and broader in terms of categories for classification. We then adapt existing neural network architectures to function on the increased channel information, in a smart manner, to leverage all hyperspectral information. We also develop novel active learning algorithms on natural (color) imagery, and discuss the hope for expanding their functionality to hyperspectral imagery

Women in Livestock Production Some Observations From Parts of Western India

ABSTRACT: The critical role of women in :Livestock production is now well realised in most parts of India. However, there seems to be confusion regarding concepts and approach with respect to research, development, extension and training as related to women in livestock production. -Fhe paper &cusses the approach adopted in research and development planning on the subject and gross lacunae felt in this respect. The observations are .based on the experiences in the field and participatory studies carried out over the last decade. The paper points out paucity of information from raided underdeveloped areas and under-privileged conununities, where dependence on livestock is high arid women shoulder major share of burden of work. Studies indicate that women have considerable knowledge on animal behaviour and production characteristics. They have good information on feed resources in the area but continue to be neglected as resource of information. Women\u27s perception on the usefulness of different livestock, constraints to production, quality of feeds etc differ from men farmers and technical persons. There is need to understand and appreciate these aspects and modify the development and extension programmes taking the systems approach. The paper stresses nerd to change approach to extension and training for the benefit of women. The burden of work on women, high illiteracy, their aptitude and perceptions need be duly considered. Involvement of women in On-farm trials for developing technologies and recommendations for unproved productivity, is stressed. Key Words: Livestock Production, Women Involvement, Perceptions, Extension, 1 raining, Indeginous Knowledg

Identification of a Unique Core Domain of Par-4 Sufficient for Selective Apoptosis Induction in Cancer Cells

The present invention relates to Par-4 mutants which cause apoptosis in cancer cells which are sensitive to Par-4 and also induce apoptosis in cancer cells which are resistant to Par-4. The present invention also relates to methods of using the Par-4 mutant to treat certain cancers, as well as to kits, vectors, and polypeptides for same