 "Rajeev Kher")
India has been on the USTR’s PW list — meant for countries with an unsatisfactory IPR and trade regime — for a long while; there had, in fact, been pressure to put this country on the more stringent “Priority Foreign Country” list, which might have triggered sanctions on Indian companies and trade.
Rajeev Kher, commerce secretary, said Washington should, instead, take its concerns over this country’s IPR and patents’ protection rules to the India-US Trade Policy Forum, a bilateral platform with no meeting since 2010, though one is expected in a couple of months.
Kher, rapping the “unilateral action” of the USTR, said India was “ready to discuss this bilaterally under the Trade Policy Forum but the government will not be party to any sort of investigation they would like to carry on here”.
“The US has to understand India’s situation. India is not in violation of any of its bilateral or multilateral agreements on any platform,” he said.
The USTR’s office had issued its Annual Special 301 Report on Wednesday, where it retained India on the PW list, as it believes the country has a weak IPR regime, impacting American companies. India’s been on their PW list since the inception of the report in 1989. This is an annual review of the global state of IPR protection and enforcement.
In the report, the USTR has said it would conduct “Out-of-Cycle Reviews” with all countries on the PW list, meaning it will hold regular discussions on IPR protection and enforcement. One might be done in July-August if the Indian government agrees.
The report raised concern over the provision of compulsory licensing of patented technologies under the National Manufacturing Policy. The report said such a move would discourage investments from flowing into India.
According to Anwarul Hoda of ICRIER, “Compulsory licensing is a flexibility given to developing countries under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement of the World Trade Organization. It is not a normal practice in India to use compulsory licensing; it is done when there is a pressing need and it can be applied to any sector.”
The US report has said it would “redouble” its efforts on IPR-related issues once the new Indian government takes office.
It has also said India’s made “some limited progress” in improving its IPR regime. Also, that India had made “limited improvements” on copyright enforcement.
“The US had to do something to silence the lobbies there who are pressing the government to take action against India. They do not want to be seen as not doing anything,” says Biswajit Dhar, director general of RIS, the Delhi-based think tank on trade.
The US has understood their position can be challenged in a multilateral platform, he said. “So, they are trying to resolve the matter bilaterally and in the process, deploying such pressure tactics.”
The Special 301 Report also lauded some steps taken by India in improving the operations of the Patents Office. Examples are digitising of records, upgrading of online search and e-filing capabilities, and hiring additional patent examiners. It also expressed satisfaction over the government’s decision to revise the Preferential Market Access policy, which the US believes has contained elements that favoured India-owned IP more than foreign-owned IP.
