Global Innovation Policy Center

Anytime you base your business model on the fashion whims of teenagers, you know it’s going to be a rough ride, admitted Osiris Shoes President and CEO Tony Chen. But what Chen didn’t expect was to have to fight a continuous, global battle to protect his innovative designs.

Like finding the cure for cancer, this race to develop an antidote to malaria is more like a marathon. Health professionals have exhausted nearly 30 years of research and development and invested hundreds of millions of dollars to not just eradicate, but merely slow down the spread of malaria.

India is a strategic partner and close ally of the United States, but most people are surprised when they learn that India is not a top10 trading partner of the United States. The reality that the trade relationship between the U.S. and India is far below where it should be isn’t just a coincidence, it’s the result of baffling anti-business economic policies in India.

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it twice: India’s economy is backsliding. Puzzling policies which cut to the core of the country’s innovative potential and intellectual property rights are causing India to miss out on one of the biggest trade and industry opportunities seen in modern history. But today’s New York Times editorial board took this line of thinking a step further, suggesting that a wide array of economic woes are moving the country in reverse:

India’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) recently released numbers purporting strong international investment in the country’s pharmaceutical sector. The data, which provides a snapshot of the foreign direct investment (FDI) India attracted between April and June of this year, is layered thick with innuendo that recent patent revocations and denials during the same time period have had little effect on India’s investment climate.

Recent policy, regulatory, and legal decisions have deteriorated IP rights in the country, making India an outlier in the international community. The purpose of the review, India: The International Outlier on IP, is to provide a succinct and evidence-based analysis of the consequences of India’s poor IP environment.

In 2010, the then-President of India declared the next 10 years to be India's "Decade of Innovation." However, recent policy, regulatory, and legal decisions have deteriorated IP rights in the country, making India an outlier in the international community and raising concern from the business community, Congress, and the Administration.

India’s dedication to innovation was called into question today at an event hosted by the GIPC. At the event, Representatives Erik Paulsen (R-MN) and John Larson (D-CT) expanded on the comments made in their letter to President Obama expressing concern over the deteriorating intellectual property system in India. In fact, Reps. Paulsen and Larson represent a broader congressional concern of the potential investment and trade consequences Indian industrialist policy is posing to American innovators, industry, and the economy:

Today, the Global Intellectual Property Center’s Executive Vice President Mark Elliot joined other concerned industry representatives to highlight the growing problems of India’s intellectual property regime before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

If the last few weeks are any indication, concern over Indian intellectual property (IP) and trade practices are reaching a crescendo. Just ahead of Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip, over 200 Members of the House and Senate along with a dozen-plus industry associations are pressing the Administration to address the increasingly deteriorating IP conditions in India.