Manufacturers Association for Information Technology, the computer industry body, has approached the government for constitution of a special tribunal that will hear cases on intellectual property rights violations and counterfeiting.

As part of its drive to tackle counterfeiting, MAIT, along with Hewlett Packard, Cannon, Epson and Intel, has formed an IT Anti-Counterfeit Consortium of India that will undertake a study on the quantum of counterfeiting in the country.

"There has been no serious study on the quantum. Estimates vary between Rs 80 crore (Rs 800 million) and Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion). The consortium was formed with the main purpose of estimating the volume of counterfeiting," explained Vinnie Mehta, executive director, MAIT, at the sidelines of a workshop on combating counterfeiting in the city.

"With as many as 4.5 million PCs expected to be sold this year against 30 lakh (3 million) sold in 2003, the problem of counterfeiting is also expected to rise," explained Mehta.

Lack of knowledge among enforcement workers was an impediment to curbing counterfeiting problems. A paper on the occasion stated India fared 16th in terms of IPR theft with software piracy having witnessed a 5-7 per cent growth in recent years.

There were over 60 companies starting with the word Nike, as many as 65 companies using the word Rolex and some 217 company names with the word Intel. There were also 136 companies with the word Tata and over 400 companies using the word Reliance outside the ownership of the established industrial house of that name.

Estimated trade loss due to piracy in India was around Rs 2,160 crore (Rs 21.60 billion) in 2002. Motion pictures lost the most at Rs 346.1 crore (Rs 3.4 billion) with piracy as percentage of total market at 60 per cent.

For the music industry the figure was Rs 30 crore (Rs 300 million) or around 40 per cent of the total market. For business software and application the estimated trade loss was Rs 1,615 crore (Rs 16.15 billion) or 75 per cent of the total market size. Books and publications industry witnessed Rs 168.4 crore (Rs 1.684 billion) of trade loss.

Industry has estimated India's IT growth could be doubled by 2006, if the country reduced software piracy by 10 per cent.

Cutting India's piracy rate by 10 per cent to 60 per cent by 2006 could create nearly 50,000 high-tech jobs or more than two-and-a-half times the number now available in the Indian software industry.