India, US to enhance engagement on intellectual property rights issues

NEW DELHI: India and the US today agreed to enhance their engagement on intellectual property rights, a vexed issue between the two countries.

Visiting US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi also reaffirmed the importance of providing transparent and predictable policy environment for fostering innovation.

"Both countries reiterated their interest in sharing information and best practices on IPR issues, and reaffirmed their commitment to stakeholders' consultations on policy matters concerning intellectual property protection," a joint statement issued after the meeting of the two leaders said.

Recognising the progress made in constructive engagement on intellectual property under the last round of the India-US Trade Policy Forum held in November last year, the two sides also looked forward to enhance "engagement on IPR in 2015 under the High Level Working Group on IP, to the mutual benefit of both the countries," the statement said.

The statement assumes significance as the US companies have alleged that India's IPR regime is discriminatory, particularly for pharmaceutical industry.

India has consistently maintained its stand that its laws are compliant with global and WTO norms.

India is also in the process of formulating a comprehensive policy on IPR. A six-member think tank has already submitted the first draft report on that.

Under the Trade Policy Forum, India and the US have set up a high-level working group on intellectual property. The TPF is the principal trade dialogue body between the countries.

It has five focus groups: Agriculture, Investment, Innovation and Creativity, Services, and Tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers.

On April 30, the US had brought out the Special 301 report, an annual review of the global state of IPR protection and enforcement, in which it has classified India as a 'priority watch list country'.

On the report, India had said that the Special 301 process is a unilateral measure taken by the US under their Trade Act, 1974 to create pressure on countries to increase IPR protection beyond the TRIPS agreement.

Earlier, the US industry had also raised the matter of India's rejection of patents for Bristol-Myers Squibb's Sprycel and Novartis AG's Glivec. It expressed concerns over issuance of a single compulsory license (CL) by India.

The concern identified in the USA's report are based on the inputs provided by the American industry on their perception of the level of protection provided by India to Intellectual Property.

Issues that have been flagged in the report include, concerns over the provision of section 3(d) of the Patent Act, CL, inclusion of a statement relating to CL for green technologies in India's National Manufacturing Policy and challenges relating to enforcement of IP Rights.

Section 3(d) of the Indian Patent Act 1970 does not allow patent to be granted to inventions involving new forms of a known substance unless it differs significantly in properties with regard to efficacy.