September 6, 2013
The Honorable Barack Obama President of the United States The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20500
RE: India’s potential Preferential Market Access (PMA) and current intellectual property policies
Dear Mr. President:
I respectfully write to you in advance of your meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to request that you do everything in your power to urge him to take action to protect American industry and innovation from India’s potential PMA and current intellectual property policies.
Standing firmly in opposition to India’s potential PMA policy implementation is critical not just to Texas’ economy, but to American industry. For example, the Global Intellectual Property Center of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports that IP exports in Texas amount to $213.3 billion, or 85.4 percent of our state’s total exports, and have created 1 million jobs in Texas.
Nearly half of Texas’ private-sector employment depends on the products generated from copyrights, patents and trademarks belonging to Texans. Those 4.6 million jobs generate 54 percent of our gross state product. Texas’ innovative economy depends on strong protection of intellectual property for a vibrant economy, job creation and the ability of the state’s engineers, inventors, scientists and artists to protect their innovation. According to the U.S. Chamber, Texas ranks third nationally in research and development with $16.1 billion in annual expenditures.
Please convey to the prime minister that if the PMA policy is expanded to include private manufacturers it will adversely impact U.S. companies and future trade opportunities. India should be strongly urged to advance its economy by building competiveness through innovation and entrepreneurship while avoiding policies that will restrict India’s participation in the global economy.
POST OFFICE Box 12428 AUSTIN, TEXAS 78711 (512)463-2000 (VOICE)/DIAL 7-1-1 FOR RELAY SERVICES VISIT www.TEXASONLINE.COM THE OFFICIAL WEB SITE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS
The Honorable Barack Obama September 6, 2013
With regard to intellectual propetiy, India’s decisions related to multiple medicines fail to protect the patents of international corporations and unfairly allow Indian industries to then produce and sell those medicines both internally and internationally; such practices must be corrected.
Copyright infringement within India in the software, music and film industry has cost U.S. industries several billion dollars in estimated lost revenue. Intellectual property rights are an essential mechanism to encourage individuals and businesses to invest capital and human resources in innovation and research. Without the opportunity to recoup these investments with international protection of intellectual property, investors, researchers and businesses will be less likely to make those investments critical to the economic development of our country and will be unwilling to invest in India knowing that much of their efforts will be uncompensated.
I hope that you will pursue this discussion with Prime Minister Singh for the benefit of American workers and businesses as well as the future investment of international entrepreneurs in India.
Sincerely,
Rick Perry Governor
