UN agency to help India bolster IP enforcement

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) plans to strengthen cooperation with India to help improve enforcement of intellectual property laws in the country.

“The year before last we had started an activity in cooperation with the Central Bureau of Investigation in Ghaziabad to create awareness and assess needs, together with government officials, of issues like this (improving enforcement and checking infringement of intellectual property). I will talk with Indian officials during my present visit on what can be done to further the initiative,” said Louise Van Greunen, Director, WIPO, in an interview with BusinessLine .

Van Greunen is in New Delhi to participate in a FICCI seminar on Illicit Trade – A Threat to National Security and Economy .

“We of course are not the people who would run and clear the street. We look at what strategically should be done in terms of sustainable capacity development to make law enforcement officers aware of the needs and to address them,” she said.

With piracy and other infringement issues growing in India, as in other parts of the world, the proposed IPR policy drafted under the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion stresses enforcement and adjudication issues.

Greunen said that as far as the IP policy was concerned, the Indian government had already highlighted a substantial number of issues, and WIPO would see how it could help address some of them.

WIPO, one of the specialised agencies of the United Nations, provides assistance to its members in the field of building respect for IP and the enforcement of IP rights. The services it provides include legislative advice, as well as training and awareness raising activities.

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