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India implemented new patent laws that allowed companies to have exclusive rights to both the method of drug production and the product itself. This would increase the prices of medications and impact public health initiatives. Activist groups like the Lawyers' Collective, India Network for People Living with HIV or AIDS, and Doctors Without Borders fought for affordable medication. Section 3D of the 2005 Act allowed for flexibility in making vital medications affordable. The TRIPS agreement and the Doha Declaration protected access to medication and required patent-holding companies to offer compulsory licenses during public health crises. The 2005 Patents Amendment Act adapted Section 3D to prevent patents of known substances unless there was a significant difference in efficacy. This prevented companies from patenting Me-Too medications solely for profit. This is India and the Patent Wars by Murphy Halliburton, Chapter 2. Once India implemented its new patent laws, several activist groups, particularly the Lawyers' Collective, undertook litigation to ensure that access to life-saving medications would not be undermined. The Lawyers' Collective has mounted pre-grant oppositions, which are legal challenges to patent claims due to them being unmerited, at India's patent offices. Other notable activist groups involved in this fight for affordable life-saving medication include the India Network for People Living with HIV or AIDS and Doctors Without Borders. The new laws essentially stated that companies could have exclusive rights not only to the method of drug production, but to the product itself. By allowing patents on the product, producing the medication no matter the method would require the obtaining of the license from the patent holder and the payment of royalties on sales, which would increase the price of medications by raising the overhead to produce them, and majorly impact the public health initiatives that rely on affordable medication like the Sub-Saharan Africa AIDS Treatment Program. Because this is a non-retroactive law, the effects of this would only be seen with the development of new medications. For example, as HIV strains become resistant to already existing medications, new ones will be developed that will be inaccessible to people that cannot afford them. Section 3D of the 2005 Act allowed for flexibility in making vital medications affordable following the flexibilities in TRIPS and the Doha Declaration mandate. The TRIPS agreement was incorporated by the WTO of the Doha Declaration, which said that WTO members' right to ensure access to medication for all and to protect public health was protected by the agreement. This meant that should there be a public health crisis, patent-holding companies were required to offer compulsory licenses to non-patent-holding companies. In the 2005 Patents Amendment Act, 3D was adapted to say that patents of known substances will be considered identical, and therefore non-patentable unless there is a significant difference in their efficacy. By including efficacy as a requirement, Me-Too medications could no longer be patented specifically with the purpose of making more money for companies once their patents ran out.
