India continues slow, steady climb on US Chamber International IP Index

The US Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) released its ninth annual International IP Index Recovery Through Ingenuity highlighting the extraordinary role of intellectual property (IP) rights in discovering and delivering pandemic solutions.

The new report evaluates IP rights in 53 global economies — from patent and copyright policies to commercialisation of IP assets and certication of international treaties.

The overall global IP environment improved in 2020, with positive score increases in 32 of the 53 economies measured by the IP Index. India ranked 40th in 2020, scoring 38.4 out of 100 on a set of 50 intellectual property-related indicators.

“As one of the world’s most innovative and creative economies, a unified intellectual property (IP) framework supports India’s competitiveness. This is especially true for many of India’s most highly regarded sectors, including advanced manufacturing, biopharmaceutical products, and creative content. Among BRICS nations, India registered the second-highest growth over nine editions of the US Chamber Index hit years with an overall improvement of over 13 per cent. Since 2014, the Centre has clearly recognised the importance of India’s IP environment to the competitiveness of its innovative and creative sectors and taken commensurate steps to strengthen patent administration, enforcement, and commercialisation of IP assets,” said Patrick Kilbride, Senior Vice President, Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) at the US Chamber of Commerce.

“We encourage the Government of India to build upon the positive momentum of the last nine years to address areas where challenges remain. The ecosystem for innovators and creators could be further strengthened through reforms to clarify trade secrets protection, the removal of bureaucratic barriers, and the passage of clean Cinematographic Law amendments to protect Indian creative content,” said Kilbride.

The 2021 Index illustrates that economies with the most effective IP frameworks are more likely to achieve the socio-economic benefits needed to combat COVID-19, including greater access to venture capital, increased private sector investment in research and development, and over 10 times more clinical trial activity. Over the last year, transparent and predictable intellectual property rights have also fostered unprecedented levels of highly successful public-private sector collaborations.

“The international IP system gave the innovative scientific community the capacity to respond to the global pandemic,” said David Hirschmann, President and CEO of GIPC. “Countries with the most effective IP ecosystems – as measured by the 2021 Index – become trusted partners in our mission to develop, manufacture, and distribute the solutions needed to defeat COVID-19 in record time. Now is the time to build greater international consensus and capacity on IP, to enable all countries and the next generation to build a sustained economic recovery through ingenuity,” Hirschmann said.