America
India rejects US report on intellectual property as unilateral
New Delhi, May 8
India has rejected the US'
annual report on intellectual property rights (IPR) and patents,
describing it as a "unilateral" action "inconsistent" with global
trading rules, against the backdrop of its earlier announcement on
bringing a national IPR policy by early 2015, parliament was told on
Friday.
"The Special 301 Report issued by the United States under
their Trade Act of 1974 is a unilateral measure to create pressure on
countries to enhance IPR protection beyond the TRIPS agreement,"
Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the Lok Sabha in a written
reply.
"Special 301 which is an extra territorial application of
the domestic law of a country is inconsistent with the established norms
of the WTO," she added.
The US Trade Representative (USTR), in
its annual Special 301 report last week on IPR and patents regime of its
partner countries, put India under the category of 'Priority of Watch
List' (PWL) as it believes the country has inadequate IPR laws.
"Any
dispute between two countries needs to be referred to the Dispute
Settlement Body of the WTO and unilateral actions are not tenable under
this regime," the commerce minister said.
Last year, the then
newly-installed NDA government announced the rolling out of a 'National
IPR Policy' by early 2015. The department of industrial policy and
promotion created a think-tank which has formulated a draft policy.
Bilateral
trade between India and the US crossed the $100 billion mark in
2013-14, and currently stands at $103 billion. The countries have set a
bilateral trade target of $500 billion by the decade-end.