Back in 2005, I was at one of my earliest meetings of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in Geneva, Switzerland. I was still coming to terms with the eccentricities of UN organizations and the diplomatic world in general, but I was stunned listening to delegations speaking critically about IP protection, as if property rights were hindering their economic development.
Leading the charge was the Indian delegation, which worked hand-in-hand with radical NGOs to demand that WIPO acknowledge the “harms” caused by IP rights.
Then, during one of WIPO’s many and lengthy coffee breaks, I picked up a copy of the Financial Times and read an article about how India’s Science Ministry was planning a major expansion of its biotech sector. The ministry recognized that this would, of course, require massive foreign direct investment (FDI) in India.
It was jarring to read in the FT how India was promising to enact policies designed to attract foreign investment into biotech R&D, while at the very same time its Geneva delegation was leading the charge to weaken the very property rights that would be necessary to attract all that foreign investment. It seemed the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing, and I blogged from Geneva along those lines.
Fast forward to 2013 and the dissonance has only gotten worse. As recently as May 11, President Mukherjee said:
“The future prosperity of India in the new knowledge economy will increasingly depend on its ability to generate new ideas, processes and solutions. The process of innovation shall convert knowledge into social good and economic wealth. In a globally competitive world, India has to unleash its innovation potential to increase capacity, productivity, efficiency and inclusive growth.”
He’s right, of course, but India isn’t going to live up to its full potential so long as it purposefully disregards the intellectual property rights of its trading partners.
In the past 18 months, India’s courts have handed down several decisions revoking strong patents on pharmaceuticals developed by international firms, and ruling in favor of domestic generics that were clear patent violations. India has also issued compulsory licenses under conditions not authorized under the country’s TRIPs obligations.
India has become a hotbed of piracy for movies, music and software, but its piracy enforcement efforts seem limited to the domestic Bollywood movie industry.
There is a strong body of academic literature demonstrating that the increased foreign direct investment that India needs is closely associated with strong IP protection. It’s also true that good relationships between countries are fostered when they respect each other’s property. So long as India blatantly disregards the intellectual property of its trading partners as part of its economic strategy, India will continue to throw away the world’s biggest economic opportunity.