The Protection of Intellectual Property in the Global Economy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamal Saggi ◽  
Olena Ivus
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
The World

Longstanding international frictions over uneven levels of protection granted to intellectual property rights (IPR) in different parts of the world culminated in 1995 in the form of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)—a multilateral trade agreement that all member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are obligated to follow. This landmark agreement was controversial from the start since it required countries with dramatically different economic and technological capabilities to abide by essentially the same rules and regulations with respect to IPRs, with some temporary leeway granted to developing and least developed countries. As one might expect, developing countries objected to the agreement on philosophical and practical grounds while developed countries, especially the United States, championed it strongly. Over the years, a vast and rich economics literature has emerged that helps understand this international divide. More specifically, several fundamental issues related to the protection of IPRs in the global economy have been addressed: are IPRs trade-related? Do the incentives for patent protection of an open economy differ from those of a closed one and, if so, why? What is the rationale for international coordination over national patent policies? Why do developed and developing countries have such radically different views regarding the protection of IPRs? What is the level of empirical support underlying the major arguments for and against the TRIPS-mandated strengthening of IPRs in the world economy? Can the core obligations of the TRIPS Agreement as well as the flexibilities it contains be justified on the basis of economic logic? We discuss the key conclusions that can be drawn from decades of rigorous theoretical and empirical research and also offer some suggestions for future work.

Club goods, intellectual property rights, and profitability in the information economy

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman Mark Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Corporate Strategy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Club Goods ◽  
Financial Firms ◽  
Financial Power

AbstractAre club goods becoming more widespread in developed economies, and, if so, what is the broader significance of this trend? Club goods are as salient for the profitability of non-financial firms as for finance. First, corporate strategy today largely revolves around the generation or acquisition of intellectual property rights and other club/franchise goods. Second, financialization is not just about the credit relationship between financial firms on the one side and non-financial corporate and household borrowers on the other, but also about Main Street's ability to use financial power to suppress competition in its own markets. Third, firms’ strategic reliance on IPRs and club goods more generally has magnified both profit and wage inequality in the broader economy. This inequality combines with changes in corporate structure to produce a significant part of the household level income inequality we currently observe in the United States. Fourth, all these processes are ineluctably political, because the state necessarily constitutes club or franchise goods, just like any property right. But the quantity and quality of those property rights is an indeterminate outcome of struggles among firms over the size of and shares of the pool of profits in a given national and global economy.

Turning Trips on Its Head: An "IP Cross Retaliation" Model for Developing Countries

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shamnad Basheer
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
Trade Disputes ◽  
Suspension Model ◽  
The U.S

The biblical David vs. Goliath paradigm plays out very frequently in international trade disputes. In 2003, a tiny island state, Antigua and Barbuda (hereafter Antigua) took on the United States (hereafter U.S.) in a WTO (World Trade Organization) dispute, alleging that the U.S. violated the General Agreement on Trade in Services (hereafter GATS) obligations by effectively foreclosing its borders to overseas internet gambling services. It won at both the panel and the appellate levels. However, to this date, it has been unable to secure compliance by the U.S.This paper considers “cross retaliation" by suspending intellectual property rights under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (hereafter TRIPS) as a viable remedy for developing countries such as Antigua that often find themselves at the receiving end of WTO inconsistent measures maintained by countries that are economically more powerful.Towards this end, it proposes a “Tiered IP suspension model," where certain kinds of Intellectual Property (hereafter IP) are targeted first for suspension before others, depending on the ease of objectively ascertaining the harm caused by the unauthorized use of such IP and/or the potential to induce compliance by the defaulting state. Illustratively, copyrights over sound recordings that have established rates for public performance are targeted first. If working with this tier of IP subject matter does not yield desired results, then the complaining state moves on to other IP where it is relatively more difficult to compute the loss caused to the IP owner (such as pharmaceutical patents) but which may be a more powerful tool to induce compliance. Such a model could be useful for a large number of developing countries, such as India and Brazil, that often find that, despite WTO victories, scofflaw states such as the U.S. and EU fail to comply. Towards this end, this paper offers a very concrete “development" oriented international trade law remedy.

The Impact of Globalization on Agricultural Biotechnology in Iran: A Model for Regional Intellectual Property Rights

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-53
Author(s):  
Peter Phillips ◽  
Morteza Haghiri
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Research And Development ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Biotechnology Sector ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe increasing population of developing countries, which creates an increasing demand for food, is severely challenging traditional agricultural practices. Recent scientific developments have introduced biotechnology techniques to agriculture. To increase the benefits from implementing biotechnology, countries need both to continuously invest in research and development in their biotechnology sector and to implement a series of complementary policies. Establishing and enforcing the intellectual property rights of plant breeders are among of these policies. The successful institution of plant breeders' rights is influenced by market institutions and the legal system, which together comprise the environmental structure of the economy. Since property rights are not well established in most developing and developed countries, individual research and innovations cannot be protected from intellectual property piracy. As a result, there is little incentive to continue investment in research and development in biotechnology in those markets. This paper proposes a model of regional intellectual property rights for developing countries where individual intellectual property rights are not enforceable.

scholarly journals A Case Study on Applicability of Intellectual Property Rights to the Traditional Medical Systems of Asia and Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Dr. Pradipta Mukhopadhyay
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Medical Systems ◽  
Underdeveloped Countries ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

Today with an ever increasing population, and the recent Pandemic of COVID-19 still in force throughout the world, agricultural innovation is getting vital in order to increase the productivity and secure the global food supply but agriculture research and development is always a costly affair and while previously it was undertaken mainly by public sector, today the private sector is adopting the work of Research & Development specifically in the area of biotechnology. Thereafter we see that in the modern world in both the developed and developing countries use of herbal medicines, phytonutrients and nutraceuticals are expanding rapidly as many persons are resorting to these products for treatment of various health problems within various national healthcare settings but many of these products have remained untested and their use are also not monitored which has caused problems in acquiring proper knowledge of the adverse effects of these medicines and therapies used, creating safety related issues for the persons who are using them along with causing obstacles in proper promotion of these products and methods throughout the world. Intellectual Property (IP) refers to the creations of mind such as inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, symbols, names and images and these are protected by laws like Patents, Copyrights, trademarks etc, which enable people to earn recognition or financial benefits from what they invent or create. Previously machines were considered for invention or artistic creations and were protected by the Intellectual Property Rights and the assignment of IPRs to living things is relatively a recent phenomenon in the developed countries but today agriculture is seen as an industry that cannot survive without research, development and investments. This situation made it necessary to extend protections of IPRs in all its forms to the agriculture sector also. Then we see that recently not only Ayurveda of India but also other Traditional medical systems of Africa and South America has also started getting recognitions throughout the world as a rationale system of medicine and so it is absolutely necessary to understand the concept, rules, regulations, present status, controlling authorities of Intellectual Property Rights to protect and promote the ideas about these types of treatments and medicines and make them acceptable throughout the world without any constraints for the development of the developing and underdeveloped countries of the Asia, Africa and South American continents . In this paper we will study the impact of Intellectual Property Rights on the traditional medical treatment systems of continents of Asia, Africa and will try to examine how Intellectual Property Rights can be applied to protect and increase the production of medicines developed from medicinal herbs in the developing and underdeveloped countries of Asia and African countries along with a special reference to India. This study has been casual, exploratory and empirical in nature and the data needed for research work has been collected by using both direct and indirect methods of data collection..

scholarly journals Intellectual Property Rights and Economic Growth: The Case of Middle Income Developing Countries

2007 ◽  
Vol 46 (4II) ◽  
pp. 711-722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pervez Zamurrad Janjua ◽  
Ghulam Samad
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Average Growth ◽  
Increase In Productivity ◽  
External Sector

Intellectual property (IP) refers to the creation of mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, name, and images used in commerce. Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have been widely recognised as a growth enhancing factor for the global economies as a whole. IPRs regime can influence the growth process through domestic and external sector of an economy. This study is primarily concerned with the effects of IPRs regime through external sector. Through different channels IPRs can promote economic growth in the recipient countries. The most important is technology transfer and its positive spillovers. Therefore, IPRs exert economic growth, which requires increase in productivity, increase in productivity requires increase in technological innovation and it requires the efficient protection of IPRs Rapp and Rozek (1990). The IPRs can influence the average growth more effectively in the open economies as compare to the close one Gould and Gruben (1996). Latter on Thompson and Rushing (1999) extended the model and included total factor productivity (TFP) in their growth model, which shows that IPRs have an insignificant impact on TFP for developed and developing countries but a positive and significant impact for the developed countries. To sustain economic growth it requires secured property rights system.

scholarly journals THE IMPACT OF TRIPS ON IPRs PROTECTION IN JORDAN, AS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF A DEVELOPING COUNTRY

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (Special) ◽  
pp. 154-162
Author(s):  
Mohammad Abdulmahdi Amin Alfaouri
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Ethical Attitude ◽  
The Impact

In the last few decades, the developing countries have witnessed a remarkable increase in the infringement of intellectual property rights thus conventions and treaties were held to reduce these infringements, in particular, the TRIPS Treaty (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights).This study attempts to explain the causes of intellectual property rights infringements and the efficient means for intellectual property rights protections by taking Jordan as an example. The study finds that TRIPS Treaty, which is the latest international action to enhance the protection level, consumer's ethical attitude, development expenditure, economic policies, weakness of law enforcement, and low-income in developing countries are important factors to explain the level of IP protection. Because of all of these, the infringements became a phenomenon in developing countries that firstly need amendments in their intellectual property laws to apply the criminal sanctions jointly by civil remedies, owing to the fact of the shock value or general deterrence to enhance the commitment to the law and to remit this phenomenon, furthermore, the state will follow up on the cost of prosecution without involving the owners of the rights personally in many cases. On the other hand, literature revealed that the infringements of IPRs became a phenomenon because the TRIPS Treaty prepared for the benefits of the large companies, thus the developing countries' legislation, economic and consumer's ethical attitude got affected negatively. In addition, the developed countries threatened them by sanctions if they didn't make retroactively amendments on their legislation, which also led to prevent them to adopt the necessary measures that mitigate the negative impact on their economic and social life. Regarding the applied research method, this paper used secondary data sources and applied the descriptive and comparative analytical legal approaches to illustrate the most important points and findings on the topic.

The TRIPS Patent Protection Provisions and Their Effects on Transferring Climate Change Technologies to LDCs and Poor Developing Countries: A Critical Appraisal

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khorsed ZAMAN
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Patent Protection ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Least Developed Countries ◽  
Green Technologies ◽  
Compulsory Licensing

Despite the existence of almost eighty international agreements and legal instruments, there has not been a marked development in the transfer of climate change technologies to poor and the least developing countries. This article investigates the role of intellectual property rights (IPDs) and scrutinizes the effects of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) on the transfer of these technologies. It explores the TRIPS patent protection provisions and examines the associated flexibilities like compulsory licensing and parallel import options in the context of the transfer of climate change technologies. It finally concludes that the TRIPS patent protection rules, including the existing flexibilities, are one of the biggest impediments to the transfer of these technologies to poor and least developed countries. New agreements or promises on the transfer of green technologies would be fruitless if these TRIPS rules are not amended.

Are Developing Countries Going Too Far on TRIPS? A Closer Look at the New Laws in India

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 395-421
Author(s):  
Radhika Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Generic Drugs ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Trips Agreement ◽  
World Health ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Health Organization

The goal of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement is to harmonize the intellectual property rights of World Trade Organization (WTO) member countries to a certain minimum standard. As a WTO member, the organization required India to enact legislation that enforces TRIPS by 2005. Part of India's motivation to pass its 2005 Patents Act stemmed from its obligations as a WTO member nation, as well as the government's desire to stimulate greater foreign investment, innovative research and economic growth.India's implementation of the TRIPS Agreement has generated a great deal of controversy. Disagreement exists about whether the Indian Patents Act overzealously protects intellectual property rights and whether the Patents Act goes beyond the spirit of the TRIPS Agreement. Many health officials and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are seriously concerned about what the Patents Act implies for people suffering from diseases in less developed countries. Nonprofit and some World Health Organization officials argue that the new law prevents India from producing and supplying generic drugs within its borders and to other developing countries.

Paying for services: experiences at the Smithonsonian Institute

1997 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-23
Author(s):  
Cecilia H. Chin ◽  
lldiko P. DeAngelis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Art History ◽  
Smithsonian Institution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Care ◽  
The World ◽  
Research Complex

The Smithsonian Institution, a trust instrumentality of the United States, and the largest museum and research complex in the world, receives many outside permission requests to reproduce images in the Smithsonian Collections. Charging fees for photographic usage is a common practice in the United States, especially in art history and general museums. Beginning in 1992, the Smithonian established internal guidelines for changing such fees and for handling permission requests from outside sources. The procedures ensure that the Smithsonian recognises and respects the intellectual property rights associated with images in the collections and the terms of any pre-existing agreements. Great care is also taken to protect the Smithsonian’s name from use in any commercial context, to avoid the implication that the Institution endorses a product (or one product rather than another).

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