Justifying India's Patent Position to the United States International Trade Commission and Office of United States Trade Representative

Abstract

The paper below largely is an extract of the testimonial filed by the authors to the Secretary of the ITC in response to the Notice on the Federal Register dated August 29, 2013 titled Trade, Investment, and Industrial Policies in India: Effects on the U.S. Economy. Where required, the paper also draws from the written submissions that the authors made to the United States Trade Representative’s (hereinafter, USTR) office on the related question of whether India deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights or deny fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on intellectual property protection. The authors submitted the testimonials to the ITC as well as the USTR and as legal academics with expertise in patent law, trade law, the TRIPS agreement and the law of India. Each of the authors had engaged in this field for more than 10 years and has closely followed the developments within India in relation to the prescriptions of the TRIPS agreement.