India junks US report on IPR, calls it 'inconsistent' with WTO

Last year the Modi-led government announced the rolling out of a 'National IPR Policy' by the early 2015

The government on Friday rejected the  annual report from the US Trade Representative (USTR) on intellectual property rights (IPR), terming it ‘inconsistent’ with global trading rules.

The report, Special 301, released by the USTR on April 30, had put India under a ‘priority watch list’ (PWL) category, citing ‘inadequate’ IPR laws. The US keeps a close tab on the developments of the IPR and patents laws of countries in the PWL category.

“The Special 301 Report issued by the United States under their Trade Act of 1974 is a unilateral measure to create pressure on countries to enhance IPR protection beyond the TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) agreement,” Minister for Commerce & Industry Nirmala Sitharaman told the Lok Sabha on Friday.

Sitharaman added the issue related to IPR should be referred to the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and unilateral actions such as those enumerated in Special 301 were “not tenable under this regime.”

“Special 301, an extra territorial application of the domestic law of a country, is inconsistent with the established norms of WTO,” Sitharaman noted.

Meanwhile, the US International Trade Commission (USITC), a quasi-judicial federal agency giving trade policy advice to the US government, has initiated yet another round of investigations on the country’s trade policies at the behest of the American government. The first hearing took place on May 4, in which it heard the viewpoints of various US industry lobbies across all sectors from information technology to pharmaceuticals.

“Despite the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year on an ‘open for business’ platform, the Indian government has taken very few concrete steps to improve the trade and investment relationship with the US other than engaging in high-level dialogue with the US government,” said Linda Dempsey, vice president (international economic affairs), National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). 

The USITC is expected to hear such viewpoints on India’s trade policies till June 2, after which it will make a report and present it to the Senate by September. The agency had conducted similar investigations last year. India and the US have set a target to achieve bilateral trade worth $500 billion in goods and services compared to $103 billion at present.