| |
| |
| Consulates In India CHENNAI • MUMBAI • CALCUTTA | Contact Us • Privacy Notice |
Published by the Public Affairs Section, American Center, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001 (phone: 23316841), on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. Contact us: editorspan@state.gov For subscriptions or address change: subscriptionspan@state.gov Subscription Information |
 |
IPR To view the article in magazine format,
Please click here for the PDF File  India should be at the very forefront of rigorous intellectual property rights protection, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Karan Bhatia said in a SPAN interview during his most recent visit to India. "I think it perhaps could be the most important thing India can do to secure its long-term development future," declared Bhatia. SPAN: More important than building infrastructure? BHATIA: India should have the strongest laws and the strongest enforcement because having that legal infrastructure in place is just critical to developing knowledge based industries. India has managed to develop a fairly competitive knowledge based industry. But it still is much, much smaller than that of the United States or Europe or even some of the developed Asian economies. So, there's only so far that I think India can go unless it develops a state of the art intellectual property rights regime, which means improvements to its patent law, improvements to its copyright law and a strong, focused, effective, centralized enforcement system. And, we're willing to help with technical assistance and training and so forth. But at the end of the day, the political will is going to have to come from India itself. Many in India do not, however, see this as such a pressing issue. I do think that it is going to be important for Indian business people, Indian students, those who really stand to benefit the most from this, to be heard. I don't disagree with those of the Indian government who say that there needs to be more popular appreciation and public awareness of the value of strong IPR protection. But, I also think that to some extent the Indian government can lead and perhaps bring others along as well. That's what happened with the "open skies" agreement, to be honest with you. There was no great consensus among the Indian population that air fares to the United States were too high or that there were too few aviation connections. But the Indian government with the real leadership of Minister Praful Patel, the civil aviation minister, took a bold step forward and the results are demonstrating themselves with new air services, lower prices, more options. I think you sort of bring people along once they see that there are actual benefits. Sometimes you lead and others will follow. What does IPR mean to India's majority, the rural poor, those in the agriculture sector? It's the 25 percent of the Indian population that's actually going to drive its economic growth-which will not be the agricultural sector, it will be the knowledge-based sector-that needs intellectual property rights. I mean the IPR is the infrastructure for the knowledge-based economy. It is the roads. It is the telecommunications lines. Some intellectuals, including prominent Indian journalists and writers, say that everyone copies, that's how ideas spread, and it's not such a big deal to buy a cheaper, pirated movie. The same people who say IPR is not a big deal, everyone copies, will be the first to bemoan the brain drain from India to the United States. The reason there is a brain drain from India to the United States is because the best and the brightest from India can go to the United States, patent their products over there, or copyright their software over there and reap untold riches, because there are protections for the fruits of their intellectual labor. SPAN Readers Join the Debate Please write to us at editorspan@state.gov about your views on Intellectual Property Rights. We will publish some letters in our next issue and on our Web site. /wwwhspan.html |
