In 2005, India made some remarkable amendments to the Indian Patents Act of 1970, to keep medicines affordable in the country. Since then we have faced a significant blowback not just from the global pharmaceutical industry but also from developed world including from the U.S. and the European Union.
At the heart of the matter are the strong standards for patents which India introduced to promote genuine innovation across all fields of technology, in perfect compliance with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) norms. In contrast, developed countries have weaker standards as a result of incessant lobbying by corporate behemoths. Twelve years later, we now know what it means: India rejects bad patents in far greater number than developed countries.