Does Indian IPR policy meet the international standards?

Does Indian IPR policy meet the international standards?

Introduction:

Intellectual property refers to creations of the intellect owners by law. Recently, IPRs are in news owing to increasing global competitiveness, progress in International trade etc., Recently, the USA threat to downgrade India's IPR environment is an out-of-cycle review.

India meets global standards

1. Indian has initiated various policies to create a conducive environment for protection of IPRs and has brought changes at legislative and policy level.

2. India has stable and well established IPR framework from judicial and administrative point of view and is also fully compliant with the agreement on Trade related aspects of IPRs.

3. India is committed to wide range of international treaties and conventions relating to IPRs.

4. Some major improvements like upgradation of IP legislation, infrastructure facilities, human resources, quality service to stakeholders, transparency in functioning and access to IP data through website etc. have been made.

5. While the Americans and Obama caution India on its IPR regime, several NGOs in USA opine that India is fully compliant with WTO TRIPS Agreement.

Indian IPR regime not up to the mark!

1. In America's Special 301 Report, India is on a "priority watch list", which identifies countries which do not provide "adequate" and "effective" protection of IPRs.

2. The Report says that through India has made some improvements in the IPR laws, protection of IPRs in some areas are weak due to inadequate laws and ineffective enforcement.

3. Protection of foreign trademarks still remain difficult because of procedural barriers and delays.

4. India's copyright act has three overly broad exceptions, which have led to weakening protection of software.

Conclusion:

Indian Government has paid special attention to improve service delivery by upgrading infrastructure, building capacity and using state-of-the-art technology in the functioning of Intellectual property offices in the country; which in turn has led to sweeping changes in IP administration thereby meeting the global standards. It is a globally acknowledged fact that the existing IPR regime of India has been a life saver for Indians and other developing countries. It has shown that a conducive IPR policies doesn't violate IN Conventions.