The accession to the Paris Convention and the PCT, said an official press release, would enable India to play a more significant role in the determination of matters related to industrial property in the international fora and forcefully articulate its concerns on such issues. It would also provide a boost to scientific research, inventive and innovative activities.

The Paris Convention, a multilateral treaty dealing with the protection of industrial property, provides priority to patent applications from member countries without filing separate patent applications in each country. PCT is a facilitation treaty under the Paris Convention and deals with information on filing, searching and examination of patent applications.

India would not have to make any changes in the Patents Act, 1970 in order to accede to the convention. The only amendment requiredwould be in the Designs Act, 1911, to extend reciprocal priority arrangements to all countries party to the convention. At present, this is restricted to only Commonwealth countries.

The Paris Convention is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), one of the specialised agencies of the United Nations dealing with the protection and promotion of intellectual property rights.

At present 147 countries are members of the Paris convention. According to the announcement, the main advantages for India would be improved industrial climate, improved information flow, better and more extensive protection for Indian inventors abroad, benefit of national treatment to Indian inventors, support to India's export efforts, encouragement to scientific research and technological development and membership of PCT and other treaties. The PCT is a facilitation treaty under the Paris convention. The basic provisions of the Paris Convention are national treatment, common rules and the right ofpriority. If a country is not a member of the Paris Convention, its inventors will have to file for patents in several countries at the same time to seek protection in these countries. In the case of convention-member countries, an inventor could apply for protection in one of the other member countries on the basis of an application made in his home country. The access to PCT enables Indian inventors to file only one application for patent instead of separate applications in each country. It also enables international search of previously filed applications in the same field, and centralised publication.

"The ultimate examination and grant of the patent would, however, be left entirely to our patent office which will examine the application within the framework of domestic law."