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BACKGROUND NOTE: STANDARD ESSENTIAL PATENTS, INNOVATION AND
COMPETITION: CHALLENGES IN INDIA
Arpan Banerjee *
INTRODUCTION
In September 2014, a few months after a landslide election victory, the Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi announced the launch of Make in India, an ambitious program
designed to turn India into a global manufacturing hub. One of the factors widely thought to be
responsible for Modi's victory was support from India's neo-middle class-a young, newly-
urbanized section of the electorate seeking employment and improved living standards but
struggling amidst an economic downturn.1 In a speech inaugurating Make in India, Modi linked
the program with the aspirations of this section of society. Modi stated the need to elevate the
status of the poor-to-middle class as fast as possible, noting that sixty-five percent of India's
population was aged thirty-five and below.2 He declared that the [s]traight answer to achieve
this goal would be to create jobs in the manufacturing sector.3 He emphasized the importance
of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for this purpose, terming FDI as both a responsibility
and an opportunity.4 But Modi conceded that India's poor rank in the World Bank's Ease of
Doing Business Index-below 130 at the time-was an impediment and had to ideally rise to
fifty.5 Modi thus announced that the government would reduce bureaucratic obstacles faced by
* Alexander von Humboldt Foundation German Chancellor's Fellow, Bucerius Law School, Hamburg (2016-
17); Assistant Professor, Assistant Dean and Executive Director, Centre for Intellectual Property and Technology
Law, Jindal Global Law School, India. The author would like to disclose that the Jindal Initiative on Research in
IP and Competition (JIRICO) has received funding from Qualcomm, Incorporated. JIRICO also receives support
from O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU), the parent university of JGLS. JIRICO was formally launched on
December 18, 2015. JIRICO presently comprises eight faculty members of JGLS, along with a team of research
fellows and research assistants. The author was a member of JIRICO during its inception but is no longer affiliated
with JIRICO. The author would like to thank the members of JIRICO for their assistance in preparing this note.
1 In the summer of 2014, India's national elections were won, by a record margin, by the National Democratic
Alliance, a coalition whose dominant member is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Under the leadership of Modi,
the BJP alone secured enough seats to form a simple majority, the first time in history it had done so. It was also
the first time in twenty-five years that India, accustomed to fragile coalition governments, had witnessed a single
party winning a simple majority. See generally Christophe Jaffrelot & Gilles Verniers, The Resistance of
Regionalism: BJP's Limitations and the Resilience of State Parties, in INDIA's 2014 ELECTIONS 28-45 (Paul
Wallace ed., 2014); RAJDEEP SARDESAI, 2014: THE ELECTION THAT CHANGED INDIA (2015).
2 Narendra Modi, Indian Prime Minister, Address at the New Delhi Launch of 'Make in India' Global
Initiative (Sept. 26, 2014) (transcript available at htw:/iwww measxovtin/Speeches-
Statements htn?dtl/2403 3/is~address~at~the±Iaun
ch~of±Make-in+Jndlia±l~bai initiaitive) [(hereinafter Speech by Narendra Modi)].
3 Id.
4 Id.
5 Id.
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