U.S. Health Experts Express Concern Over Working Group On IP

"The U.S., in particular, will work to eliminate local working requirements that India is seeking to use to promote its own technological development," he said.

"The fact that this working group will have "decision-making" powers is particularly problematic as it places the U.S. fox in the Indian chicken coop," he said.

According to a fact sheet issued by the White House after Modi-Obama meeting, as part of an ongoing commitment to strengthen engagement, both governments also agreed to establish a high-level working group on intellectual property under the TPF that will meet at the senior official and expert level to discuss the range of intellectual property issues of concern and interest to both sides.

"It is very clearly going to be used to pressure India to expand liberal grants of drug patents in India, and to block or restrain the use of compulsory licenses on drug patents," said Jamie Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International, an NGO working on knowledge governance.

Baker said the U.S. consistently advances higher intellectual property protections through its trade working groups and trade partnership groups.

"It is significant that this sentence is embedded in the section on economic growth and increasing foreign direct investment, as U.S. IP industries and the USTR promote heightened intellectual property rights and strengthened enforcement mechanisms as being key to investor confidence and ultimately to innovation itself," he said.

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