I: Brushing aside concerns of the US on India’s IPR regime, the Government on Friday said its intellectual property rights laws are legal-equitable and WTO-compliant.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made it unequivocally clear that one must encourage invention of life-saving drugs and at the same time “we must also be conscious of the need to make it available at a reasonable cost so that drug cost does not become prohibited as has become in some parts of the world.”
“We do believe that the balancing act which India has struck is responsible for life-saving drugs available at a reasonable cost in India compared to the rest of the world. So, our model seems to be both legal, equitable and WTO-compliant,” he told reporters here.
He was responding to a query on US’ concerns over India's IPR regime and the country being on the priority watch list in the US Special 301 report. India continues to feature in the watch list based on US assessment of Indian IPR protection as ‘inadequate’.