The Cabinet on Monday approved the draft of Bangladesh Patent Bill, 2021, aiming to update the century-old patent law.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina chaired this weekly Cabinet meeting held at Bangladesh Secretariat, joining it virtually from her official residence Ganabhaban.
A registrar office will be there to issue and cancel patent against any single inventor or joint inventors of any technological innovation under the proposed law, Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam told reporters after the meeting.
The bill placed by the Industries Ministry states: “The owners will be given the patent of any innovation for 20 years receiving application, and then it’ll be a public property.”
The cases, particularly general rights and compensation-related issues, under the draft law will be treated as civil affairs and civil courts will handle them. But cheating and similar offences will be dealt with under the penal code, Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam added.
The Cabinet Secretary also said: “If anyone fails to carry out the orders under different articles of the proposed law, the compensation would be between Tk5 lakh-Tk10 lakh.”
The Cabinet also approved the draft of Bangladesh Industry-Design Bill, 2021 in a bid to protect intellectual property rights of industrial design.
Anwarul mentioned that the government has taken the initiative to enact two separate laws - patent law and industry-design law, by splitting the Patents and Designs Act, 1911 as there is a huge number of diversified affairs under the century-old law.
“The same registrar office will act as administration office, for both the proposed laws. There is also a provision in the draft law that allows for compensation to owners and such cases will be dealt with by civil courts.”
The Cabinet also cleared the draft of Bangladesh National Archive Bill, 2021 having a provision that no record can be destroyed.
The bill was brought to replace the National Archive Ordinance, 1983 in line with a High Court judgment, said the Cabinet Secretary.
“The provision of destroying any record has been dropped from the proposed law. So, no record stored in the archive can be destroyed,” Anwarul said, adding that the soft copies of classified documents will have to be stored in Kaliakoir Data Centre after a certain period of time.
He furthermore said that there will be an advisory council and director general for the national archives.
The meeting also endorsed a proposal for the ratification of the agreement to establish International Vaccine Institute and cleared the draft of a proposed agreement on cultural cooperation between Bangladesh and Qatar.
