i tariff and investment restrictions were fully eliminated by india and standards of ip protection were made comparable to us and western european levels us exports to india would rise by twothirds and us investment in india would roughly doubleconsumers businesses and workers in both the us and india could gain enormously from enhanced bilateral trade and investmentbut achieving the full potential of this relationship requires the actual removal of indias economic barriers they saidthese barriers are prevalent in multiple sectors and include high tariffs inadequate protection of intellectual property rights ipr inconsistent and nontransparent licensing and regulatory practices and various other restrictions the lawmakers saidregarding ipr protection the four congressmen said they continue to have concerns about indias system for providing protection for patents trademarks and copyrightsindias weak standards and insufficient enforcement remain an area of concern for us right holders including with respect to pharmaceutical patents and in the area of copyright protection where we understand that india has not enacted meaningful laws to prevent cam cording in cinemas which has led to rampant infringement they wrotewith regard to indias licensing and regulatory practices discriminatory determinations and inconsistent and nontransparent approval processes have hampered us trade and investment they allegedfor example india maintains a variety of forced localisation measures on solar and information technology products and enforces duplicative incountry security testing requirements for telecommunications equipment the letter notedother regulatory barriers include unnecessarily slow and opaque approval processes for biotechnology products sanitary and phytosanitary standards that appear to be nonscience based burdensome import and customs procedures significant limitations on foreign participation in professional services and restrictive foreign equity caps for financial retail and other major services sectorsin a statement patrick kilbride vice president of international intellectual property global intellectual property center said from the halls of the congress to the trump administration us leaders have placed an emphasis on ensuring american innovation is respected abroadin india that includes strengthening ip standards to address issues with patentability computerrelated inventions and copyright infringement prime minister modis visit presents an opportunity to revisit these issues and renew indias commitment to policies that will benefit both american and indian innovators kilbride said pti lkj uzm