The US Chamber of Commerce’s intellectual property rights advocacy arm, Global Innovation Policy Centre, has ranked India 44th out of 50 countries in terms of suitability of IP climate.

New Delhi, however, gives no formal recognition to such rankings and has in the past even dismissed criticism heaped on its IPR regime by the US government as part of its annual US 301 report.

“There may be a large number of studies and assessments done by private agencies and individual countries on various issues including IPRs. These are private initiatives and we do not officially recognise the findings,” a government official told BusinessLine .

The sixth edition of the GIPC index showed that India ranked 44th of 50 economies — a jump from 43rd of 45 economies one year ago — improving its performance both in relative and absolute terms, an official release said.

“For the first time, India has broken free of the bottom 10 per cent of economies measured, and its score represents the largest percentage improvement of any country measured. This is further evidence of a country on the move,” said Patrick Kilbride, Vice-President of GIPC.

India improved its score as it passed guidelines to strengthen the patentability environment for technological innovations, improved the protection of well-known marks, and initiated IP awareness and coordination programs, thereby implementing some tenets of the 2016 National IPR Policy, the release said.

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