The Hindu Business Line : `Enforce patent laws to strengthen economy'

Infringements of law and delayed legal settlements weaken the confidence of the world in India's capacity to protect originality and global standardisation of products.

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Ahmedabad Feb. 8 The country's GDP would match that of the United Kingdom "very shortly" but to make its impact long-lasting, the country needs to stringently enforce laws pertaining to copyrights, patents, trademarks and Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) to gain the world's confidence further in our capabilities, a Canadian law expert said here today.

Mr Jay Chauhan, a non-resident Gujarati, who runs a patents law firm in Canada with 300 corporate clients and is also a judge at Richmond Hills courts since 1992, told presspersons here that India should soon have full-fledged commercial courts from district to national levels to deal exclusively and quickly with disputes arising out of problems such as piracy and violation of patents laws. "How come a Bollywood movie becomes available at my home in Canada the day it is released in Mumbai," he asked. Such infringements of law and delayed legal settlements weaken the confidence of the world in India's capacity to protect originality and global standardisation of products. "He also advised manufacturing companies to hire patents lawyers at each stage of product development. Instead of taking these as wasteful expenditure, they should realise that legal advisors are a "soft cost" they should take into account for staying longer in the fray.

Mr Chauhan said organisation of a stable society and economy being dependent on a sound legal system, such stern protection of patents in India would be viewed positively abroad. The country's current economic strides have made implementation of patents laws all the more significant. Even Japan and China had to take stern steps in this regard to gain confidence globally when their economic began to rise, he said.

Stressing upon branding of products and its protection through patenting even before marketing, he pointed out that while India's innovation and the Indians' command over English as an international business language helped the country when compared with its current competitor, China, the same could not be said with regard to the country's respect for IPRs and related laws. This should be brought to an end at the earliest, he added.

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