Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Investor-State Arbitration: Underlying Challenges and Perspectives

This article provides an analysis of existing international mechanisms for protecting intellectual property rights and concludes whether investment arbitration can be an effective forum for resolving intellectual property disputes. It focuses on an examination of the scope of intellectual property rights protection by bilateral investment agreements, as well as the specifics of the investment dispute resolution procedure. In addition, the analysis includes an assessment of the territoriality principle of intellectual property rights and its application in Ukrainian law, as well as an examination of international investment treaties concluded with Ukraine to determine the scope of protection afforded to intellectual property.

Role of intellectual property as key element of innovation activities: legal grounds

Keywords: intellectual property, intellectual property rights, innovation activities,innovation activity companies (entities), open innovations concept, open innovationplatforms The article determinates that, on the background of a digitaleconomics actively development, the open innovations become a key source of digitalbreakthrough. The author states that within such a concept, the entities carryinginnovation activity, keep focus on monetizing both the internal research results aswell as the external ideas. Such approach, enhanced with external partners involvementinto the innovations process, helps the innovative technologies to move remarkablyfaster through the lifecycle. It is also emphasized that the approach enabling externalaccess to the companies’ innovations, need a concept to be set up, with focus onintellectual property rights protection. The author draws attention that the key roleof legal instruments for intellectual property protection, is to minimize the risk forthose companies which contribute to the innovations market development. It is clarifiedthat within such a concept, the innovation activity companies provide their partnersthe right to use the intellectual assets, which may be either already in use bysuch companies or idle to use. Thus, the companies providing legal protection of theintellectual property, have more favourite conditions to come into a strategic partnership.The author highlights that the innovations-industry companies make profitfrom getting access to science-research and related production outputs which areowned by their partners, as well as from further development of their own productsresulting from the intellectual property under the strategic agreement. The articlealso proposes creation of digital platforms which will facilitate the effective partnershipof the business, state organizations and innovation teams within the developmentprocess of innovation products.

Global sources of credibility: production integration, international institutions, and private property rights in authoritarian regimes

An important field of the political economy literature examines the mechanism of property rights commitments in authoritarian regimes where formal political constraints are absent. While many of the existing studies focus on how domestic autocratic institutions shape the formation of property rights regimes, this paper takes an open-economy approach and examines the compound effect of global economic integration and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) on property rights protection in authoritarian regimes. We propose that the domestic presence of foreign factors of production is positively associated with more credible property rights commitments in authoritarian economies. Moreover, this association is moderated by authoritarian regimes' participation in institutionalized IGOs, which enhance the organizational capacity of these foreign owners of production factors. Through the transnational networks of production integration, international institutions indirectly alter the domestic distribution of bargaining power between the authoritarian government and private economic actors, rendering the commitment to property rights protection more credible. An analysis of a panel dataset consisting of 105 authoritarian regimes yields preliminary evidence supporting our proposition.

Entrepreneurship Factors Among Developed Countries and Emerging Regions

The paper contributes to the understanding of entrepreneurial activity by assessing the relative importance of eight entrepreneurial readiness factors across countries in different regions and stages of economic development. Drawing on the literature, this paper identifies eight principle national entrepreneurial readiness factors (NERFs) as (1) business freedom; (2) investment freedom; (3) investor protection; (4) property rights protection; (5) technological readiness; (6) innovation; (7) freedom from corruption; and (8) access to risk capital. NERF country data is subjected to a linear regression analysis for each factor’s influence on the sum of all eight factors which is called a country’s National Entrepreneurial Readiness Value (NERV). Six South East European countries, eight South American countries, ten South East Asian countries, and six West African countries are compared against one another and the benchmark of the four largest G7 economies. Results of this analysis are presented and show that investor protection, property rights protection, and freedom from corruption are the most impactful entrepreneurial readiness factors. These findings present future research implications of how these results link to endowments and relate to improving entrepreneurial readiness.

Intellectual Property Rights Protection

This chapter provides background on China’s intellectual property rights (IPR) system. It explains the surge in patenting activity in China over the past two decades. Given the central role played by universities and public research organizations, the chapter details the legislative progress made in management of intellectual property with respect to technology transferred from these two key actors in China’s innovation system. The chapter also outlines the challenges that still remain with regard to management of intellectual property and patent licensing on the part of Chinese universities and public research organizations. Finally, the chapter documents the most recent legislative changes in China’s IPR system in order to strengthen it further.

How Property Rights Matter to Firm Resource Investment: Evidence from China’s Property Law Enactment

Although property-rights theory has long been used to explain firms’ ownership of resources, research on the channels through which property rights affect heterogeneous firms’ investment in building resources remains scarce. Leveraging a property-law enactment in China, we find that strengthening property-rights protection leads private firms to make greater intangible and tangible asset investment compared with state-owned firms and that these effects are mediated by external equity and debt financing. Further, we unpack resource heterogeneity by explicating key differences between intangible and tangible assets, and we document an alignment between asset intangibility and financing approaches such that for intangible asset investment, equity plays a larger mediation role, whereas for tangible asset investment, debt’s mediating effect is greater. We contribute to the strategy literature by using property-rights theory to link together asset intangibility and financing approaches and by showing that the strength of property-rights protection affects firms’ resource investment and shapes firm heterogeneity.