Role of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Indian agriculture-a bane or boon

The progressive commercialization of agriculture in the developed countries has been linked to agriculture as an economic activity and as a provider of employment in the developing countries like India. Technological know-how is increasingly becoming a key determinant of market share in modern trade. The MNCs are spending millions of dollars for research and development of technology. The advanced technology determines the quality and demand of the products in the international markets. Therefore, MNCs are interested to preserve their monopoly over state of the art technology. MNCs especially do not want to share their technological knowledge with the developing countries firms for fear of loosing the upper hand they enjoy over domestic firms due to their advanced technology. Global trade in the transfer of technology takes place among the MNCs in billion dollars. MNCs earn a lot of money out of the royalties.