Panel Set Up On Patents Row With Eu, India Plea Rejected

A dispute settlement panel has been set up at the request of the European Union to resolve its patents dispute with India. The move came even as India went in appeal against a case filed by the US on the same dispute, which India lost.

India yesterday put up stiff resistance to the EU request for a panel on the patents dispute, arguing that the EC had acted very late after a report of the panel (in the row with the US) had been made available and appealed against by India.

The new panel was set up at a dispute settlement body meeting held at the WTO headquarters in Geneva yesterday, on a trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs) complaint filed by the EU.

No dispute panel was, however, constituted in the case of the balance of payments dispute raised by the US against India since the US has been the only party till date which has been pressing the issue. A second request by one of India's other trading partners will, however, result in a panel being set up "" as has been the case in the patents dispute.

Sources here maintained that the two countries were close to a solution and that the US had agreed in principle to a six-year schedule to phase out quantitative curbs on imports if India was more flexible.