India to sabotage ACTA -

Updates to this story

India appears to be getting ready to sabotage the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

Apparently the government is furious that rich countries have driven the ACTA process while the World Trade Organisatio was ignored.

They are also fuming that the World Intellectual Property Organisation was bypassed in a bid to appease the content industry. These bodies are where Brazil, China, and India have acquired some real power.

But what seems to have got India's goat is that the ACTA's rules are clearly meant to apply to countries like India.

Now it hopes to derail the whole process. According to the India Times, the country's leaders want to form their own anti-ACTA coalition.

It will hold talks with like-minded countries such as Brazil, China and Egypt, and may oppose the ACTA proposal jointly as well as individually by holding talks with countries involved.

Ironically although ACTA is getting all its press over its Internet section, India is worried about thinks like pharmaceutical production.

The Times said that under the rules infringement could occur "if a medicine or product is made for which a company holds a patent in any country, no matter how unclear in scope and validity of the patent is."