Washington, DC – In the 2014 Special 301 Report published in April, USTR called for renewed and intensive engagement on intellectual property (IP) issues with the Government of India, announcing that the United States would “redouble our efforts to seek constructive engagement that will both improve IP protection and enforcement in India and support India’s efforts to achieve a ‘decade of innovation’ and advance its legitimate public policy goals, including access to affordable medicines.” USTR also announced that we would initiate an Out-of-Cycle Review (OCR) of India in the fall of 2014 to evaluate progress on this engagement.
Today, USTR is commencing the OCR by publishing in the Federal Register a request for the public to provide all necessary information for identifying and assessing the quality of engagement with the Government of India on IP-related issues of concern. The OCR will take stock of progress in our bilateral engagement on these important issues, including the United States’ and India’s promising recent agreement to establish an annual high-level Intellectual Property Working Group as part of the bilateral Trade Policy Forum. The OCR will not re-visit India’s designation on the 2014 Priority Watch List.
We look forward to receiving comments from the public, and to working with the Special 301 Subcommittee agencies as well as with the Government of India to make our evaluation.
To view the Federal Register request, please click here.
