US business advocacy groups plan to launch Indo-US IP dialogue

Two top American business advocacy groups are in an advance stage of launching a US-India IP dialogue to address bilateral concerns and identify best practices and expertise in the innovation sector.

The US has been bilaterally pushing India to tighten its Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime for a couple of years and said that India remains a challenging market for IP- intensive investment.

India has over the years maintained that it is fully compliant with multilateral IP regulations.

There is enthusiasm among all stakeholders on both the sides in trying to find constructive ways not only to address concerns but also to reflect best practices, president of the US India Business Council (USIBC) Nisha Desai Biswal told PTI.

This may usher in the kind of innovation that India seeks not only in terms of investment but also in terms of domestic innovation that it wants to protect, safeguard and allow to flourish, she said.

The USIBC and the Global Innovation Policy Centre (GIPC), that are parts of the US Chambers of Commerce (USCC), are in advance stages of launching a US-India bilateral IP dialogue.

An informal meeting of the various stakeholders is scheduled this week and the dialogue could be launched as soon as in March.

This would include not only corporate stakeholders but also representatives from the governments of India and the US.

"These areas that had in the past been sources of tension can actually be sources of strength in the relationship. There is a tremendous amount of expertise that the chamber brings to the table," Biswal, the former assistant secretary of state for south and central Asia, said.

The GIPC has had a similar very successful bilateral dialogue with China, she said.

"For India, we see a particular opportunity for it to emerge as a real driver in the global economy. We have seen the US play that role after World War II for several decades and in the last couple of decades, China has been a global driver. It seems to me that there is an opportunity now for India to take on that role," the GIPC's Patrick Kilbride said.

Noting that the global economy has changed and the import substitution model no longer seems to be available, he said that the export, lead manufacturing and the way that China did, does not seem to be the model for the future.

The answer lies in the knowledge economy, he said.

Both Kilbride and Biswal argued that competitiveness, going forward, is really rooted in innovation.

India, Kilbride said, has an opportunity to get ahead and make that the basis on which it can drive not only the domestic growth, but also be an engine for global economic growth.

If India succeeds in becoming a leader in the global knowledge economy, US industries will benefit too, he said.

"We can both contribute to the success and benefit from the success," Kilbride said.

The IP dialogue is aimed at not only identifying shortcomings or problems, but also the solutions, best practices, technical knowledge and expertise that can be brought to bear to ultimately create for India the state of the art ecosystem that allows an innovation economy to grow, thrive and flourish, Biswal said.

For several years, the USCC and the GIPC have led a US-China IP-cooperation dialogue, which brought together very senior experts from both the countries to have relatively informal but very substantive conversations about the issues that are driving or impeding innovation in both countries, Kilbride said.

These dialogues and reports resulted in China making relatively big leaps in terms of its own domestic innovative capacity in a way it governs innovative industry and sort of setting a bar for IP-led innovation in the global space that might look like in the future, Kilbride said.

"We think this is a very timely conversation to have with India to make sure that countries like the US and India who are like-minded in terms of approach to democratic governance, market economics, are working together just as closely as we have been doing with China in the past," he said.

"What we know is that innovation cannot flourish if that innovation is not protected," Biswal said, adding that India is innovating.

"Aadhaar is the massive innovation that India has put on the table. India has created an intellectual property that should be protected," she said.

India has shown how it has really revolutionised the way governments can provide not only a universal ID, but an ID that actually then engages a whole host of different areas of service, Biswal said.

The USIBC and the GIPC is working with Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, which could be a venue for having discussion on this bilateral initiative in a public setting.

"What you're seeing here is an approach by both the governments and industries to actually be focused on solutions rather than problems; to create dialogue around best practices and to be looking for opportunities to actually create win-win situations," Biswal added.