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The big IPR worry

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CIOL Bureau
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The international business community today is extremely concerned about the protection of their IPR in India. And rightly so. The incident that I have described below has given rise to such concerns.

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Even though Indian authorities arrested a man for stealing and trying to sell the source code for SolidWorks® 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software to an undercover FBI agent four years ago, the culprit remains free today and continues to work in an IT-related capacity.

The evidence in this case is incontrovertible. Agents with the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) videotaped the transaction and recovered the source code, which the man had stolen from a previous employer while working on a project to debug SolidWorks software.

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John J McEleney 

chief executive officer SolidWorks Corporation
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But despite the fact that law enforcement officials caught the perpetrator red-handed on videotape in the commission of the crime, the case has languished in the bureaucracy of the Indian judicial system for the past four years.

The failure of the Indian government to adjudicate this case in a timely manner jeopardizes the very basis for free trade, and this case is an example of a disturbing trend of ineffective prosecution of intellectual property, piracy, and information-related crimes.

The Indian government recently reported that the number of criminal and civil cases pending before Indian courts has grown from 20 mn in 1997 to more than 30 mn today. Of the 119 criminal cases against piracy brought by the Business Software Alliance in India, only one resulted in a conviction—118 acquittals—and an appellate court later overturned that single guilty verdict. Without actual criminal convictions, there is no real deterrence—no threat of reprisal—for crimes such as the one committed against SolidWorks Corporation.

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In the Coca-Cola case, staunch rivals worked together to uncover the trade secret plot. Similar cooperation in the timely prosecution of intellectual property crimes is the least we should expect between friendly, economically engaged nations.

Only one out of the 119 piracy cases in India, resulted in a conviction. Even that was takes overturned— without actual criminal convictions, there is no real deterrence—no threat of reprisal

In addition to software development and other IT services, many business process operations involving sensitive customer information have moved off-shore. Without actual convictions, there is nothing in place to deter misuse of this data, putting the valuable personal information of countless American citizens at risk.

Free trade must be responsible trade, and our elected leaders are the ones who our responsible for negotiating the trade agreements and establishing the framework of uniform accountability that is necessary for conducting business honestly and fairly in today’s increasingly flatter world. If adversarial companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi can work together to stamp out intellectual property crime, global trading partners can and should as well. The US government should pressure the Indian government to move on criminal prosecutions as quickly as would be the case in the United States to create an effective deterrence, or treat intellectual property crimes as extraditable offenses. Either way, our government must work diligently to ensure the fast, responsible prosecution of intellectual property criminals wherever and whenever such crimes occur.

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