Intellectual Property Post-Seattle: Challenges for India as User and Creator

While external pressure to change intellectual property (IP) regimes has abated, India faces other challenges not just as a net user/importer but as net creator—actual and potential—of IP. This paper outlines the responses to the four challenges that lie ahead. First, India should consider revising its draft IP legislation so that TRIPs obligations can serve as a mechanism for enforcing its market access rights in the WTO. Second, compulsory licensing and competition policy regimes need to be expeditiously implemented to mitigate some of the most egregious impacts of TRIPs. Third, India needs to identify where its interests lie in relation to the new technologies (plants, biotechnology), and appropriately adapt intellectual property rights legislation as well as complementary institutions that would allow the benefits of these technologies to be harnessed while minimizing attendant risks. And finally, establishing workable domestic systems for protecting intellectual property/resources created in India would serve as a basis for seeking their replication internationally. The author would like to thank Aaditya Mattoo and Jayashree Watal for helpful discussions. The views expressed in the paper do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions with which the author is associated. Errors and excesses remain my own.