Context: India ranked 40 among 53 global economies on the latest annual edition of the International Intellectual Property (IP) Index.

About

• It was released annually by the US Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Centre (GIPC).
• The index was started in 2012 and the first edition compared IP environments in 11 economies.
• The Intellectual Property (IP) Index evaluates each economy's ecosystem based on 50 unique indicators which the industry believes represent economies with the most effective IP systems.

Parameters: It ranks countries based on 50 unique indicators. These indicators are divided across nine categories of protection: 1) Patents 2) copyrights 3) trademarks 4) design rights 5) trade secrets 6) commercialization of IP assets 7) enforcement 8) systemic efficiency and 9) membership and ratification of international treaties.
Significance: The IP Index serves as a roadmap for policymakers who look to support creativity, innovation and economic growth through more robust IP policy.
Key highlights
Global

• The United States, Japan and Europe remained at the top of the global intellectual property rankings 2021.
• The 2021 Index illustrates that economies with the most effective IP frameworks are more likely to achieve the socio-economic benefits needed to combat COVID-19, including greater access to venture capital, increased private sector investment in research and development, and over 10 times more clinical trial activity.
• In the 2021 report, 32 of the 53 economies benchmarked had positive improvements in their scores.

Indian Perspective

• India has shown real improvement over the past few years adding that it has made a string of positive efforts which resulted in a score increase
• It was due to stronger enforcement efforts and precedent-setting court cases involving copyright and trademark infringement.
• Among BRICS nations, India registered the second-highest growth over nine editions of the US Chamber Index hit years with an overall improvement of over 13 per cent.

Challenges: Property rights-holders in India continue to face substantive challenges, particularly regarding the patenting environment, in which India's policy framework continues to deny patent eligibility to a broad range of innovations.
Suggestions made: The ecosystem for innovators and creators could be further strengthened through reforms to clarify trade secrets protection, the removal of bureaucratic barriers, and the passage of clean Cinematographic Law amendments to protect Indian creative content.

• It is time to build greater international consensus and capacity on IP, to enable all countries and the next generation to build a sustained economic recovery through ingenuity.