Recently India Inc. reiterated a slogan that be “VOCAL about LOCAL”, so as to reduce its the dependency from foreign countries. India imports hugely from countries like China, Japan, US. For example, around 9 percent of India’s total export and 18 percent of total merchandise imports is from China. India imports various products ranging from raw materials (APIs, basic chemicals, agro-intermediates) and critical components (Auto, Durables, Capital goods). In particular, out of the respective imports, 20 percent of the auto components and 70 percent of electronic components come from China. Similarly, 45 percent of consumer durables, 70 percent of APIs and 40 percent of leather goods imported are from China [1]. Thus, unless a burden of such dependency on foreign country gets reduced, the underlying dream of the slogan will not be established. For doing so local innovations need to be encouraged and appropriately protected by Patent law of the country.
Article by Susmita Samantam, 1st published in Lexology.