India position slips to 40th on International IP Index

New Delhi, Feb 5 () India's slipped to 40th position on the International Intellectual Property (IP) Index, which analyses the IP climate in 53 global economies, this year, according to a report of US Chamber of Commerce's Global Innovation Policy Center.

Last year India was ranked at 36th position out of 50 countries.

The US, the UK, Sweden, France and Germany remained the top five economies on the intellectual property index in 2019 retaining their spots from the last year.

"Since the release of the 2016 National IPR Policy, the Government of India has made a focused effort to support investments in innovation and creativity through increasingly robust IP protection and enforcement," said Patrick Kilbride, Senior Vice President for the Global Innovation Policy Center.

Implementation of the policy has improved the speed of processing for patent and trademark applications, increased awareness of IP rights among Indian innovators and creators, the centre said in a statement.

It said that India has made significant progress towards establishing stronger IP protections-but the "job is not yet done". RR SHWSHW