Newly-elected Indian minister makes IP pledge
A minister in India’s newly-elected government has said the country will “constructively engage” with the US authorities on its IP regime, but will “stand up and speak” when necessary.
The comments, from commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman, come just weeks after the US government listed India among a number of countries whose IP regime it was assessing.
In the Special 301 Report, an annual rundown of US trading partners’ efforts to protect and enforce IP, the US Trade Representative kept India on its ‘priority watch list’ but decided against listing it as the ‘priority foreign country’.
The report said India had made “some limited progress” in improving its weak IP legal framework but that challenges were growing in “many areas”.
However, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Sitharaman said any apprehensions that the US had about India would be addressed.
Sitharaman, who admitted IP rights were an “area of concern”, pointed to the upcoming G-20 meeting in Australia this November as an opportunity to engage with US officials.
“We are clear on our IPR, and where we need to protect our IPR we will stand up and speak without hesitation,” Sitharaman told the newspaper.
“There is no grey area here, and if there are grey areas for the US authorities, we are willing to openly speak about them."
Sitharaman forms part of the government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after it was elected in May.
The victory for the BJP, led by Narendra Modi, marked the first time since 1984 that an Indian party has won enough seats to govern without the support of others.
At the time of the elections, during the INTA annual meeting in Hong Kong, lawyers told WIPR that a BJP victory could see the Indian IP system change for the better.
“There will be a lot of positive changes,” Himanshu Sharma, an advocate at Singh & Associates, said at the time.
“People thought there might be negative changes but I think the result will be positive, although it will take time,” he added.
