Working Paper: 479

Harmonization of Intellectual Property Rights Across the
Globe: Impact on India’s Pharmaceutical Exports

Supriya Bhandarkar

 

Abstract

Critics of the global intellectual property rights (IPR) regime have argued that the harmonization of IPRs across the globe would lead to a fall in exports from a developing country like India by restricting the production and export of patented products. Methodologically, in a gravity model framework using the pseudo passion maximum likelihood (ppml) estimator and detailed product level data from 1991 to 2018, this paper assesses the impact of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement on Indian pharmaceutical exports. The Ginarte and Park index serves to identify the impact. The results, contrary to assumption show that the strengthening of IPRs did not have a negative impact on the exports from India. Additionally, the results demonstrate that patent protection has not impacted Indian firms' exports, not due to innovation of new products but because of the adoption of other survival strategies such as the utilisation of the patent cliff and investing in incremental innovation.

Working Papers