As realrocker said, this is only a reply to Novartis, after they failed to apply evergreening. It was a major pro-poor victory. If I remember correctly, it brou

As realrocker said, this is only a reply to Novartis, after they failed to apply evergreening. It was a major pro-poor victory. If I remember correctly, it brought down the cost of Tuberclosis drug from Rs 10k to 350 Rupees only (I think that figure was per week/month maybe) Nevertheless, indeed non-Indians have benefited (no offense) but that is due to people in India, specially Entrepreneurs waking up late to importance of IP. Just Yesterday, I was attending the NASSCOM EMERGENCE CONCLAVE, where Founder of Naukri.com (India's biggest job portal) was speaking. He revealed that it was Naukri.com FOUNDERS who first digitally collected trademark data in India, in 1989, which was about 80,000 applications, the biggest share out of total 6 lakh pending applications. They sent it to each pharmaceutical company, and made a huge profit out of it. Prior to founding Naukri.com Though we are talking about patents here, that reference gives us a pretty good idea about the situation in India, in 1990s, when most of IP data was still in fat registers. He hired around 7-8 young college goers at intern prices, had them skip classes, and in 3 weeks collected two big bags full of registers. Which they then put throw a computer they got to use (pre pentium generation) from 10 pm to 4 am. Today, the pending copyright applications stand at 14 lakh 1 lakh = 100,000 : For quick reference.