Standards/ TBTs / IPR-Market Access
Government to use technical regulations to curb non-essential imports
The Indian government is considering beefing up the technical regulation regime in an attempt to curb non-essential imports into the country. BIS, the nodal standards regulator has been tasked by the Commerce ministry to notify at least 5000 technical standards as against the 370 or so that is present currently. The idea is to allow imports of only those products that conform to technical regulation norms that are being drawn up by BIS. Many countries used standards as a non-tariff measure to regulate imports.
BIS, CEN – CENLEC Joint Workshop on “Emerging challenges in new era of standardization: Exchange of best practices“ on 26th & 27th November 2019, New Delhi
India has been identified as one of the key markets by the CEN and CENELEC. To address the India market related issues and to create synergies with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and other important Indian standardization bodies, India Task Force was constituted. As a first step towards creating close working relationship with the Bureau of Indian Standards and to understand the commonalities and gaps on standardization strategy and standards development process between India and Europe. A two-day joint workshop was organized by BIS, CEN CENELEC on 26th and 27th November 2019 at New Delhi, India. Presentations made during workshop are available here
BIS to set quality standards to ensure Indian items are not rejected in global market
To boost exports, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has been directed to set standards for export items, which get rejected for non-compliance of global quality norms. The Minister said that the countries like Europe have new standards & parameters and our exporters are not able to comply with them. He has directed BIS to ensure all standards are in line with global standards. At present, only 50 % of standards are at par with international norms.
DPIIT launches website and mobile app for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
Dept. for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT) launched website & mobile application [Learn to Protect, Secure and Maximize Your Innovation] on IPR. The modules of this e-learning platform [L2Pro India IP e-learning Platform and the L2Pro India Mobile App] will aid and enable, innovators, entrepreneurs, SMEs in understanding IPRs for their ownership and protection, integrate IP into business models and obtain value for their R&D efforts.
As AI tech proliferates, India should update its patent laws: CII-TCS report
The increased proliferation of AI globally requires new policies for the enforcement of intellectual property rights, according to a joint report by India’s largest software services exporter Tata Consultancy Services and the CII. Currently patent laws treat AI software inventions as logical algorithms. While patent eligibility of algorithms is valid, there is little about how to deal with inventions that are heuristic in nature. TCS Report
Govt. may wait for panel report before taking Data Bill to Parliament
Even though non-personal data may be kept outside the purview of the Personal Data Protection Bill, clarity is required on several instances of overlap between personal and non-personal data. Govt formed a panel led by S Gopalakrishnan in Sept 2019. The government may wait for the committee on non-personal data to submit its report before placing the draft Personal Data Protection Bill before Parliament, people familiar with the development.