Indian NGOs protesting against the proposed changes in the Patent Act have organized a Parliament March to drive home their point on December 7, 2004.
International NGOs that have expressed solidarity with the movement would make representations before respective Indian Embassies world over on the same day to offer their support to the fight against the "move to enact a law that restrict access to essential medicines, including those for HIV / AIDS."
The NGOS have also initiated a signature campaign involving their supporters from across the world to submit a sign-on letter before the Central Government.
In a fax message to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the NGOs said, "draft amendments to the Patents Act, currently under consideration by the government, could undermine medicines access for people in need-in India and around the world" and called upon the minister to "delay implementation of the TRIPS Agreement until sufficient pro-public health safeguards are included in the Patents Act."
The protestors wanted India to simplify and streamline its compulsory licensing procedure, retain pre-grant opposition procedure, remove draft provisions for new use or second use patents -currently described in Section 3 (a) of the Patents Act and fully implement the decision of the WTO General Council on the implementation of paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration for countries that lack sufficient domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity (the "August 30th Decision").
"Many WTO Member Countries-developed and developing countries alike-have been unable to meet artificial deadlines when such deadlines would have pre-empted sound decision making regarding critical public health matters such as access to medicines. India should complete an assessment of the impact of protection and enforcement of product patents on public health before revising the Patents Act. Transparent, public consultation with all sectors of civil society prior to revision and implementation is another necessary prerequisite to amendment of the Patents Act," they demanded.
The NGOs have also sent copies of their representation to ministers of commerce and industry, chemicals and fertilizers, ministry of health and family welfare and the US Ambassador in India.
The organizations that spearheading the protest march are Affordable Medicines and Treatment Campaign (AMTC), Focus on the Global South, Mumbai, Peoples Health Movement-Mumbai Chapter, Lawyers collective HIV/AIDS Unit, National Alliance of Peoples Movements (NAPM), Mumbai and Mumbai Grahak Panchayat (MGP).