Trump administration continues to keep India on IPR watch list

The US on Friday said it will continue to keep India on a list of countries it closely monitors for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) deficiencies, mainly in pharmaceutical and software industries, a longstanding issue between the two countries.

Though it noted the issuance of India’s IPR policy, it said it “largely avoids a discussion of specific legal and policy issues that the US and other stakeholders had suggested the Modi government to address”. The US Trade Representative’s annual Special 301 report released on Friday, the first under Trump administration, named India and China among 11 countries on “priority watch list”, a category monitored but not subjected to retaliatory action.

The report reflected the new administration’s “resolve … to call out foreign countries and expose the laws, policies, and practices that fail to provide adequate IP protection and enforcement for US” companies. This annual exercise is a unilateral US action mandated by congress to monitor trading parter countries. The US has been mounting pressure on India in recent years — and nearly named it to the worst-violator category of “Priority Foreign Country in 2014, that would have led to sanctions” — specially over pharmaceutical and software IP issues.

The new report said India will remain on the “Priority Watch List for lack of sufficient measurable improvements to its IP framework on longstanding and new challenges that have negatively affected US right holders over the past year”.

It added, “Despite positive statements and initiatives upon which the Modi administration has embarked, the pace of reform has not matched highlevel calls to foster innovation and promote creativity.”