Jonathan Band
The full text of the Intellectual Property Chapter of the United Kingdom-India Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, signed on July 24, 2025, is now available for review. Overall, it is much more favorable to balanced copyright protection and user rights than previously released drafts and summaries.
The provision for copyright exceptions is the same limited language that first appeared in the UK’s proposed text for the IP chapter leaked in 2022.
Article 13.68 Limitations and Exceptions
1. A Party may provide limitations or exceptions in its law to the rights provided for in this Section, but shall confine those limitations or exceptions to certain special cases that do not conflict with a normal exploitation of covered subject matter, and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder.
2. This Article is without prejudice to the scope of applicability of the limitations and exceptions to any rights permitted by the TRIPS Agreement and WIPO administered treaties to which a Party is party.
However, the Chapter contains other important language that promotes balance. Thus, Article 13.2(a), setting forth the Objectives of the Chapter, states:
the objectives of this Chapter are … that the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology, to the mutual advantage of producers and users of technological knowledge and in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare, and to a balance of rights and obligations…. (Emphasis supplied.)
The Chapter then sets forth Principles the Parties may follow in formulating amending their laws. First, the Article 13.3(1) provides that a Party may adopt measures necessary “to promote the public interest in sectors of vital importance to its socio-economic and technological development….” Presumably these sectors would include cultural heritage, research, and education.
Second, Article 13.3(2) incorporates language similar to TRIPs Article 40 that appropriate measures
may be needed to prevent the abuse of intellectual property rights by right holders or the resort to practices which unreasonably restrain trade or adversely affect the international transfer of technology.
Next, Article 13.4 recites a list of Understandings in respect of the Chapter:
[T]he Parties recognise the need to:
(a) promote innovation and creativity;
(b) facilitate the diffusion of information, knowledge, technology, content, culture and the arts;
(c) foster competition and open and efficient markets;
(d) maintain an appropriate balance between the rights of intellectual property right holders and the legitimate interests of users and the public interest;
(e) establish and maintain transparent intellectual property systems; and
(f) promote and maintain adequate and effective protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights to provide confidence to right holders and users,
through their respective intellectual property systems, while respecting the principles of transparency and due process, and taking into account the interests of relevant stakeholders, including right holders, service providers, users, and the general public. (Emphasis supplied.)
The parties reached these Understandings “having regard to the underlying public policy objectives of their national systems, while recognizing the different levels of economic development and capacity and differences in national legal systems….”
As noted above, the Agreement does not contain detailed obligations concerning copyright exceptions. Nonetheless, Article 13.71 requiring each Party to provide adequate legal protection against unauthorized circumvention of effective technological measures does permit the Parties to take appropriate measures to ensure that beneficiaries may enjoy exceptions and limitations provided for them. Similarly, Article 13.103 requires each Party to maintain a system to limit the liability of Online Service Providers for infringements of copyright committed by users of their services.
Moreover, the language concerning Objectives, Principles, and Understandings provide both the UK and India with sufficient flexibility to adopt robust exceptions that effectively balance the interests of all stakeholders.
