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I was, I must confess, a little disturbed to hear the initial statement of the Minister because he was drum-beating the cause of those Indian companies in the drugs and pharmaceutical sector who have matured to the point, both in terms of in-house technology as well as finance available to them, to become competitors in new inventions with the drugs and pharmaceutical communities of the world. But the vast majority of our drugs and pharmaceutical producers are those who have taken advantage of reverse engineering. Reverse engineering in itself is not, I submit, Sir, a matter to be denigrated because if it was such a simple matter then every country in the world would have gone in for reverse engineering. It is the genius of India that we have the ability to take a product, work backward, discover the technology by which it was made and then reveal that technology to our own producers, who are in thousands in all our little small scale units, who will then reproduce the same drug in different form but using the technology which was discovered by a process of reverse engineering. So, the Indian genius for reverse engineering should not be extinguished by the Indian genius for new engineering. There is a scope for both.

Sir, we require it. Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar has said highly about reverse engineering. He said, it requires a sort of great ingenuity, which only the Indians have. I support it to an extent. But can we say that reverse engineering is a great credit, and research and development is not; new inventions and innovativeness is not?

Sir, there is a word in English that is called `improvisation’. I know the Indians are masters of that. But improvisation is not excellence. What India requires to become a world power is the excellence, not improvisation. Improvisation is chalu mal, you can just manage it somehow. But improvisation is not that where you can prove yourself to be the best. So, we require this legislation.

Once again, I thank all the hon. Members.
SHRI MANI SHANKAR AIYAR (MAYILADUTURAI): The hon. Minister should say that he is going to bring Patents Third (Amendment) Bill.
SHRI MURASOLI MARAN: He is a learned man. He was from the IFS. It has to come, whoever is there.
SHRI MANI SHANKAR AIYAR : The hon. Minister should just say that.
SHRI MURASOLI MARAN: It is not necessary. It will come, it has to come before 1.1.2005. If it is delayed, again somebody will go to the WTO.
SHRI SHYAMACHARAN SHUKLA : The hon. Minister should not sum up by saying reverse engineering. This is just finding a new path as going to the top of the Everest, you go via South Pole or North and you face China. Our engineers and scientists are finding new ways to discover medicines. It is not reverse engineering.
SHRI MURASOLI MARAN: I am saying we have got innovative methods. So, instead of saying reverse engineering, he should have said copying methods. I will say new innovative methods. They are experts. They have a lot of space. About 90 per cent of the WHO drugs are generic medicines.
Mr. Aiyar wanted to know whether there will be room or not. There will be a lot of room. Ninety per cent space is available for those things because usually, as you know, to develop a new medicine it requires about five hundred million dollars. Three out of ten recover the R&D cost. Out of 100, ten per cent come to the trial stage. So, there will be always room for innovative or reverse engineering.