The Big IPR Worry

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.