Author: Intern - Shubhank Suman
The European Commission released a Report on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in third countries in April 2021. The Report deals with the problem of enforcement of IPR in third world countries like India.
According to the Report, there are various practical challenges before IP protection and enforcement in India, such as forced technology transfer, procedural deficiencies, etc. Out of all these problems, counterfeiting has emerged as the major one. India has been identified as one of the top five producers of counterfeit products. Another area of concern is the effectiveness of the system for protecting undisclosed test and data, continued large backlog of older trademark applications, and lack of a statute that would specifically address the protection of trade secrets, etc.
As per the classification, India has been listed as a priority 2 country because of its systemic problems in the area of IP protection and enforcement causing significant harm to EU businesses. The main problems with IPR enforcement are linked to the lack of political will or resources. This materializes in deficiencies in technical infrastructure, capacities, and expertise of the judicial and enforcement authorities. Non-deterrent sanctions against IPR infringements as well as insufficient awareness of IPR are also considered as the major problems in India. However, despite all these problems India is ranked better than its closest contender China due to its origin of a dominant share of counterfeit and pirated goods arriving in the EU, in terms of both value and volume.
The Report along with highlighting hindrances also mentions measures for improvement that India and other third countries took in the field of IPR. The report discusses the recent accession of third countries in the Locarno Agreement on the classification of industrial designs and the Vienna Agreement concerning figurative elements of marks. It also applauded the efforts of governments to continue its focus on administrative improvements, awareness, and capacity building to improve the efficiency of its IPR system. The Report further examined the various initiatives taken by the government of third countries like modernized processes to grant patents, E-filing and online search facilities, voluntary registration of copyrights, etc.
Finally, the Report highlights the EU’s policy of IP enforcement and elucidates various initiatives like EU-India Dialogue on IPR, IPR SME Helpdesk that are collectively taken by EU and third countries to promote IP friendly environment.
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