The CPI (M) today urged the Centre to disband the Dr R A Mashelkar-headed expert committee on patent law and demanded a new committee of experts be constituted to study the issue. Mashelkar, former Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), had asked the government to “withdraw” a report written by a panel he headed after a crucial paragraph on patent law was found to have been copied ad verbatim from other sources, without any attribution. The Politburo said that many conclusions in the report are reproduction of a research paper prepared with financial help from major pharmaceutical companies of the United States, Europe and Japan. “Many conclusions in the report are verbatim reproduction of a research paper prepared under a research project financially supported by Interpat, a Swiss association of major European companies, Japanese and US-based pharmaceutical companies.”
