admin US President Donald Trump is set to visit India in future as the talks are hot about it. But before his arrival, India and the US have signed an accord on intellectual property rights (IPR). Indian cabinet on Wednesday approved an MoU with the US on the issue of IPRs, as said by Prakash Javadekar, information and broadcasting minister.
Trump is to visit India on February 24-25 and this decision has been taken just before it. The Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade had a discussion, a few days before the decision was taken, about reviewing the country’s IPR laws.
One official said that the decision was taken to enrich the cooperation between India and the US to enrich the IPR systems between the two nations. One official stated that the MoU is going to be a learning exercise for the two sides and this agreement is not going to be specific to any sector or industry. It is to include exercises and training session where experts and officials are going to visit each other’s country to study IPR systems. MoU isn’t supposed to play a legal role but experts suggest that India has to be wary of the US as they are trying to push India to drop section 3 (d) of the Indian Patents Act that doesn’t allow patents on items that are not very different to their older versions. It also opposes some globally permitted trade rules like the compulsory licences issued for manufactured copies of patented drugs to address situations of national emergency.
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