Govt to implement IPR regime rigorously: Dua

New Delhi, Sep 17 (UNI) In line with demands of the IT industry, the Government has agreed to rigorously implement IPR laws in the sector to enable India emerge as a knowledge superpower, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Secretary A K Dua has said.

''We need to implement greater intellectual property rights laws,'' Dr Dua said here, while responding to BSA Worldwide President Robert Holleyman's statement that India's track record to implement IPR regime is very poor, as Malaysia and Taiwan are much ahead from India.

In a debate on 'Conforming to IPR Regime-Is it a Business Imperative today?' conducted by CNBC, Dr Dua gave away a three-point formulae to enforce the IPR regime.

According to him, India needs to have IPR infrastructure including IPR managers, IPR attorneys and IPR enforcement machinery.

As a recent IDC-BSA Global piracy study said that decreasing India's piracy rate by 10 points from 2002 to 2006, would add 2.1 billion dollars to the GDP, thereby creating more than 48,000 new jobs and generate 92 million dollars in tax revenues.

The IT giants realised that ignorance about licensing is a key reason for the high rate of piracy at the corporate level.

The industry needs to raise awareness among people.

As India is a cost-sensitive market, the IT industry needs to provide software at an affordable price. In addition, it should provide free software to schools and colleges, Dr Dua said.

However, Nasscom President Kiran Karnik said innovations which help contain the piracy rate, need to be protected.

As India's Patents Act still did not extend to intellectual property (IP) protection of software, India protects software only under its copyright law.

Earlier, the Government amended the 1970 patent law for the second time in May 2002 in order to protect the IPR. But that was only one step taken to raise India's intellectual property protection to make it world class.

ICT was at the heart of productivity increases in labour and capital, lowering of transaction cost, innovation and further growth in ICT to fuel economic growth, Mr Karnik said, adding no field of scientific and engineering endeavour can progress without the advancement of IT where software is the centrepiece.

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