Expect India's rank to improve in global intellectual property index: Global Innovation Policy Center official

India's rank may improve in the international intellectual property (IP) index this year with the introduction of national IPR policy adding to its systemic efficiency, a top official at the Global Innovation Policy Center said on Tuesday.

India languished near the bottom in the index last year, ranking 43rd out of 45 global economies.

The sixth edition of the report brought out by the US Chamber of Commerce's Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) will be released on February 8. This year, the index will map the performance of 50 countries against 40 indicators.

However, the GIPC perceives India's IP systems to be relatively weak compared to other major markets, including other BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) nations. It wants legal certainty especially for attracting investment in research and development in high-risk sectors like pharma.

"You will see that India's performance on our index is very similar to the trend with the Global Innovation Index, with the World Bank Doing Business report. India has gradually climbed the ladder on these so you will find it is a similar trend on our index too.

"I think it will be a good news for the policymakers here in keeping with the steps that have been taken under the new (IPR) policy," Patrick Kilbride, International Vice President, GIPC told PTI.

He said a new category has been introduced this year on systemic efficiency, which looks at how countries are working to enable domestic entrepreneurs to take advantage of intellectual property (IP) rights, where India is expected to perform quite well.

Talking about India's national IPR policy, Kilbride said "When a statute makes it likely that a patent will be overturned or it creates that impression of uncertainty then it makes it difficult for the industry to invest in long term high risk, expensive R&D".

He said India has the ability to position itself to take advantage of its strengths in the technology sector and knowledge economy.

"We think that one element of the (IPR) policy should have to say we need to review our statutory environment for IP and look at how we can bring it up to international standards," Kilbride said on changes required in IPR policy.

Elaborating, he said, there should be a deterrent level of enforcement to have IP rights honoured so that when somebody violates a trademark recourse is available.

"India's current regime area is uneven. There are remedies available in some places and not others," Kilbride said.

The Global Intellectual Property Center has been rebranded as the Global Innovation Policy Center.