‘Make in India’ not at cost of IPR: U.S.

The US Trade Representative’s annual Special 301 report, that identifies trade barriers to U.S. companies and products due to a foreign government’s intellectual property regime, has placed India on the Priority Watch List, the same as last year.

About the Report:

The report ranks countries depending on the inadequacy of IP protection and enforcement into two categories —priority foreign country (PFC) and priority watch list (PWL).

While a PFC grading obligates the US Trade Representative (USTR) to initiate unilateral measures like suspension of trade concessions in case of failure of negotiation, the PWL increases “bilateral attention concerning the problem areas.”

Details:

• According to the report, India stays on the highest priority watch list due to lack of measurable improvements to its intellectual property legal framework, despite stepped      up enforcement efforts.
•  The report has identified many measures taken by the government as encouraging in terms of providing a better IP protection regime, but raised multiple concerns, particularly related to the potential erosion in IP standards due to its push for promoting domestic manufacturing.
• The U.S remains concerned particularly about actions and policies in India that appear to favour local manufacturing or Indian IPR owners. 

Criticisms:

The government of India, however, does not engage with this process as it considers it an infringement on the country’s sovereignty. India feels the categorisation is arbitrary and mostly a political decision, in order to reward or punish a target country.

Overall, the agency has 11 countries on the “Priority Watch List”: Algeria, Argentina, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, and Venezuela. These countries will be the subject of particularly intense bilateral engagement during the coming year.