NEW DELHI, July 6: Responding to a concerted appeal from a newly-appointed scientific advisory body, Prime Minister I K Gujral has directed the Ministry of Industry to set up an all-encompassing patents office to tackle issues relating to intellectual property rights and patents.

All the concerned ministries have been instructed to pool together their efforts in order to enact a suitable legislation, Gujral told the Science Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (SACC) on Saturday. The Committee, set up on June 13 and comprising 36 scientists from the country's leading science institutions, technocrats and industrialists, is headed by Prof C N R Rao.

The meeting with the prime minister focussed on questions of autonomy for the scientific establishment in order to free them from the ``straight-jacket'' of bureaucratic controls. The delay in putting in place a well-enunciated patent regime could be detrimental to India's interests, the scientists observed. P Mashelkar, chief of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, warned that delays in implementing a patent regime could prove to be ``very expensive'' for India. The country's rich and varied bio-diversity sources would be lost in the absence of clear patent laws, he said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.