'Set up special courts for IPR violation'

To tackle the problems of counterfeiting, Minister of State for Law and Justice K Venkatapathy suggested setting up of special courts for intellectual property infringement.

"Measures like identifying the root cause, awareness campaigns, joint action by enforcement agencies, industry and special courts will stem the menace," he said at the launch of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) alliance on anti-counterfeiting and piracy.

Venkatapathy suggested that there should be technological upgrades, which could make piracy a high-cost business.

Also, the companies should work on pricing, marketing and distributorship of products as unrealistic pricing of products by some industries are reasons for spurious products, he said.

The Minister of State for Commerce and Industry EVKS Elangovan said companies lose 10-40 per cent of their business to counterfeit products.

Also, 7 per cent of global trade is in counterfeit goods with the FMCG sector losing Rs 2,600 crore annually.

Due to piracy, Indian film and music industry is losing upto Rs 400 crore every year while in the case of pharma companies, it is losing 15-40 per cent of its revenue.

The loss to the government was pegged at Rs 870 crore annually.

"At present, there are laws in the country like patents act, copyright infringement act, trademarks merchandise marks act. However, there is a lack of will on part of enforcing agencies to take any pro-active action on this front so the focus should be on enforcement", he said.