India ranks 40th on International Intellectual Property Index

India ranked 40 among 53 global economies on the latest annual edition of the International Intellectual Property (IP) Index released on Tuesday.

Released annually by the US Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Centre (GIPC), the Index evaluates Intellectual Property rights in 53 global economies from patent and copyright policies to commercialisation of IP assets and ratification of international treaties.

The overall global IP environment improved in 2020, with positive score increasing in 32 of the 53 economies measured by the IP Index. This is the ninth IP index released by the GIPC.

"India ranked 40th in 2020, scoring 38.4 out of 100 on a set of 50 intellectual property-related indicators," the GIPC said in a media release.

India's overall score has increased from 36.04 per cent (16.22 out of 45) in the seventh edition to 38.46 per cent (19.23 out of 50) in the eighth edition.

India has shown real improvement over the past few years, the report said, adding that it has made a string of positive efforts which resulted in a score increase because of stronger enforcement efforts and precedent-setting court cases involving copyright and trademark infringement.

Nevertheless, rights-holders in India continue to face substantive challenges, particularly regarding the patenting environment, in which India's policy framework continues to deny patent eligibility to a broad range of innovations, it said.

As one of the world's most innovative and creative economies, a unified intellectual property (IP) framework supports India's competitiveness. This is especially true for many of India's most highly regarded sectors, including advanced manufacturing, biopharmaceutical products, and creative content, said Patrick Kilbride, GIPC Senior Vice President at the US Chamber of Commerce.

Among BRICS nations, India registered the second-highest growth over nine editions of the US Chamber Index hit years with an overall improvement of over 13 per cent, he said.

We encourage the Indian government to build upon the positive momentum of the last nine years to address areas where challenges remain, Kilbride said.

The ecosystem for innovators and creators could be further strengthened through reforms to clarify trade secrets protection, the removal of bureaucratic barriers, and the passage of clean Cinematographic Law amendments to protect Indian creative content, he said.

The 2021 Index illustrates that economies with the most effective IP frameworks are more likely to achieve the socio-economic benefits needed to combat COVID-19, including greater access to venture capital, increased private sector investment in research and development, and over 10 times more clinical trial activity.

Over the last year, transparent and predictable intellectual property rights have also fostered unprecedented levels of highly successful public-private sector collaborations.

The international IP system gave the innovative scientific community the capacity to respond to the global pandemic, said David Hirschmann, president and CEO of GIPC.

Countries with the most effective IP ecosystems as measured by the 2021 Index become trusted partners in our mission to develop, manufacture, and distribute the solutions needed to defeat COVID-19 in record time. Now is the time to build greater international consensus and capacity on IP, to enable all countries and the next generation to build a sustained economic recovery through ingenuity, Hirschmann said.

In what is otherwise a challenging copyright environment in India, a positive trend has emerged over the past few years with rights-holders increasingly being able to defend and enforce their copyrights through injunctive relief, the report said.