India's Patent Violations, Market Access Rules Hurt U.S. Trade, Senate Finance Leaders Say
India’s increasingly protectionist intellectual property and market access policies threaten U.S. trade with the country, and Secretary of State John Kerry should push India’s leaders on the issue in his upcoming visit to the country, Senate Finance Committee leaders said in a June 13 letter to Kerry. The U.S.-India trade and investment relationship is “imperiled so long as India refuses to afford adequate protection of U.S. intellectual property and full market access to U.S.-made innovative products,” said the letter from Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
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“We cannot afford to sit back and watch as India adopts policies that adversely impact U.S. innovative and creative industries, and threaten the greater stability of the international trading system.”Senate Finance members also expressed their anxieties about India’s trade practices in the recent nomination hearing for U.S. Trade Representative Mike Froman (see 13060722). India has misused patent law to “hand U.S. intellectual property to Indian companies,” the letter said, such as a recent Supreme Court ruling in the country that invalidated a patent on an “innovative” pharmaceutical. Increased local content requirements, copyright piracy, and an accompanying lack of enforcement by Indian officials, also harms U.S. companies, Baucus and Hatch said. Kerry should bring these concerns to India’s leaders when he visits the country June 24, the letter said.