USTR IPR Reports Slams 33 Trading Partners

After the USA cited India for failing to fulfil its commitments on intellectual property rights, the country said it would do so. However, in its annual report outlining proposed trade action involving IPR, the US Trade Representative's Office says it will file a formal complaint against India for failing to live up to its obligations under the World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property agreement. It will also file formal complaints against Portugal, Pakistan and Turkey.

An Indian Commerce Ministry spokeswoman said India was doing its best to comply with the accord, but efforts had been checked by the parliament, which had held up a patents bill to move India towards meeting WTO requirements (Marketletter April 22). The bill to tighten product patents had cleared the lower house but was held up in the upper chamber, where the ruling Congress party is in a minority, and was further delayed by the general elections (May 2-7). "Our position has always been that we are against unilateral action on such matters," she said.

India's production of pharmaceuticals and agricultural chemicals have been the main areas of dispute. India was among the worst offenders against IPR in the late 1980s and early 1990s, says the US government. At issue were manufacturing patents, not product patents, and US manufacturers claimed that they had lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result. In 1994, India's software industry pushed through copyright protection legislation, and the country signed the WTO accord.