"The Special 301 report issued by the US under their Trade Act of 1974 is a unilateral measure to create pressure on countries to enhance IPR protection beyond the TRIPS agreement," Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
She said India continues to be placed on the priority watch list under the US Special 301 on account of US' assessment of Indian IPR (intellectual property right) protection being inadequate.
Under the WTO regime, any dispute between two countries needs to be referred to the dispute settlement body of the WTO and unilateral actions are not tenable under this regime, she said adding Special 301 which is an "extra territorial" application of the domestic law of a country is inconsistent with the established norms of the WTO.
In a separate reply, the minister said as on April 1, as many as 2,37,671 patent applications are pending and awaiting disposal at different stages of processing in Patent Offices.
The highest number of applications are pending in Delhi office (88,297) followed by Chennai (78,405), Kolkata (39,911) and Mumbai (31,058).
Sitharaman said the government is measures to make the patent application process more transparent.
She said that facilities for quick and efficient access to all types of data and information regarding patent processing are available on the official website for the benefit of users.
The patent office follows the queuing process strictly, she said.