Washington: India and the US have made laudable progress in the fields related to intellectual property but the real policy change is yet to happen, a wing of the powerful American Chamber of Commerce said today.
The US Chamber's Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC), which had launched an aggressive anti-India campaign last year and had demanded punitive measures against New Delhi, said that while there had been a very high-level of engagement between the two countries their concerns are yet to be addressed.
GIPC said this after the US Trade Representatives announced its decision to conclude its out-of-cycle-review (OCR) on India.
"In its release, United States Trade Representative (USTR) has characterised the principal objective of the OCR as one of the engagements, and seen through that prism there clearly has been notable and laudable progress since May," said Patrick Kilbride, executive director for International IP Policy at the US Chamber's GIPC."
"Nevertheless, as the core, ultimate objective of bilateral engagement, the GIPC remains focused on measurable and sustainable progression in India toward a regime that promotes and protects intellectual property and innovation; and in that perspective the effort has been defined, but not yet truly begun," he said.
"We look forward to working with USTR and the Government of India in the coming months to ensure that the valuable engagement that is now underway will translate to real policy change that will allow intellectual property to flourish in India, and enable investors and innovators to commit to India's market for the long term," Kilbride said.
Citing positive steps taken made by the Indian government in addressing its concerns on intellectual property (IP) rights, and the series of high level engagement between trade officials of the two countries in the last few months, the US on Friday announced to conclude its OCR on Indian IP policies.
India has made useful commitments in recent months, including to institutionalise high-level engagement on IP issues, to pursue a specific work program and to deepen cooperation and information exchange with the US on IP-related issues under the US-India Trade Policy Forum, USTR said.
"While progress in these engagements with the US government and US industry has been incremental, these engagements appeared to demonstrate the commitment of the Government of India to strengthening its economic partnership with the US by working together to exchange views and make progress on IP matters of mutual interest," it said.
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