India must update its patent and copyright laws with a modern regulatory framework if it wants to attract more foreign capital, a senior US trade official told a seminar on US-Indian trade last week.
"Patent and copyright laws in India are old and backdated and they nowhere match the world standards," said Franklin Lavin, US under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade.
He made the comments while on a trip leading the biggest business delegation from the US to have visited India, which included representatives from Exxon, GE, Motorola and IBM.
In another speech – this time to the Confederation of Indian Industries in New Delhi – Lavin again criticized India's patent law and described its copyright regime as "not up to WIPO standards".
Pharmaceutical company Novartis has also attacked India's patent law, claiming that Section 3(d) of the Indian Patents Act does not comply with the TRIPs Agreement.
The Chennai High Court began hearing a case, in which Novartis is challenging a part of the Indian law designed to prevent the patenting of trivial improvements of known molecules, on September 26.
