Donald Trump’s tariff trade war likely to extend to IPR ‘violators’
NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump may take on countries allegedly violating intellectual property rights (IPR), ahead of the release of the Special 301 report by the US Trade Representative (USTR) next month, opening another front in a trade war that started with the US raising import tariffs on some items.
Trump on Wednesday night tweeted: “The US is acting swiftly on intellectual property theft. We cannot allow this to happen as it has for many years!”
Though China is likely to be the main target of any IPR-related sanctions by the US, it may also spell trouble for India as the USTR has been keeping India on its priority watch list, claiming it to be one of the world’s “most challenging major economies” with respect to protection and enforcement of intellectual property. It has even threatened in the past to downgrade India to a “priority foreign country”, which could invite sanctions.
In its representation before the USTR on a Special 301 hearing, US lobby group Alliance for Fair Trade with India on Thurs- day urged the US government to again place India in the priority watch list. “There is strong evidence that India has not made sufficient efforts to emerge from its current status under the priority watch list, or to protect adequately IPR holders’ interests with respect to patents, copyright, and trade secrets,” it added.
India has over the years rejected the observations in the Special 301 report, maintaining that it is a unilateral report of the US government and that India is fully compliant with multilateral IP regulations.
The report released last year said intellectual property holders continue to report high levels of piracy and counterfeit sales on the internet, in physical markets and through commercial broadcasts in India.
The US has also been complaining about India issuing compulsory licensing (CL) to a third party to produce a patented medicine without the consent of the patent owner, citing health emergency to bring down high prices charged for such life-saving drugs.