India, 11 others on US IPR priority watch list

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Washington: The United States has placed India and 11 other countries including China and Russia on its Priority Watch List for allegedly not providing an adequate level of intellectual property rights protection or enforcement.

Other countries on the list are Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand, and Venezuela.

The Priority Watch List countries will be the subject of particularly intense engagement through bilateral discussion during the coming year, the US Trade Representative said in its annual report on IPR.

The report "guides our efforts to protect American innovation and creativity around the world," said Ron Kirk, US Trade Representative in a statement.

"Our creative and innovative products can hit the global marketplace sometimes with just a keystroke. If we and our trading partners are not vigilant in protecting and enforcing intellectual property rights, they can vanish just as quickly," he said.

In addition to this, the USTR has listed 33 countries on the 'lower level watch list', meriting bilateral attention to address the underlying IPR problems.

Maintaining that India still remains "weak" in protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, the US asked it to strengthen its IPR regime and said it was ready to work with it in this endeavour.

The US Trade Representative in his latest annual report on IPR released here has placed India in a priority watch list for the year 2009, but noted that it has made progress on improving its IPR infrastructure, including through the modernisation of its IP offices and the introduction of an e-filing system for trademark and patent applications.

While appreciating some of the measures taken by New Delhi in the last few years, the USTR said the United States remains concerned about "weak" IPR protection and enforcement in India.

"The United States continues to urge India to improve its IPR regime by providing stronger protection for copyrights and patents, as well as effective protection against unfair commercial use of undisclosed test and other data generated to obtain marketing approval for pharmaceutical and agrochemical products," said the report released by US Trade Representative Ron Kirk.