It’s time to ratchet up India’s intellectual property stance

Abstract

With America’s growth slowing, India can provide the manna for reinvigoration, not just for the US but also global innovation, writes Chirantan Chatterjee. In a few days, United States President Barack Obama will be in India and the thrust of his discussions will focus on participating in India’s growth agenda. Clearly, structural changes in governance are going to be the key. The formation of the Niti Aayog and initiatives like ‘Make in India’ constitute complementary levers. Alongside, one wonders if the country is ready for a ‘Create in India’ call as well. A short primer on the economics of ideas might be in order. Economist Paul Romer and his colleagues have discussed that ideas, key to economic growth, are non-rivalrous (NR) and potentially non-excludable (NE), this complicating designing their markets. NR implies that one’s consumption of a certain idea doesn’t foreclose its consumption by another. NE implies that unlike an encrypted code in a software, ideas unless protected through intellectual property (IP) are difficult to exclude from being used by others. NR in ideas gives rise to increasing returns (IR). Read more at: https://www.hindustantimes.com/ht-view/it-s-time-to-ratchet-up-india-s-intellectual-property-stance/story-st73cu7EOJLbHyKFFYO4VP.html