International Public Goods And Transfer Of Technology Under A Globalized Intellectual Property Regime

Distinguished economists, political scientists, and legal experts discuss the implications of the increasingly globalized protection of intellectual property rights for the ability of countries to provide their citizens with such important public goods as basic research, education, public health, and environmental protection. Such items increasingly depend on the exercise of private rights over technical inputs and information goods, which could usher in a brave new world of accelerating technological innovation. However, higher and more harmonized levels of international intellectual property rights could also throw up high roadblocks in the path of follow-on innovation, competition and the attainment of social objectives. It is at best unclear who represents the public interest in negotiating forums dominated by powerful knowledge cartels. This is the first book to assess the public processes and inputs that an emerging transnational system of innovation will need to promote technical progress, economic growth and welfare for all participants.

Offers comprehensive and analytical literature surveys of the central questions regarding the linkages between intellectual property protection, international trade and investment, and economic growth. This book covers such questions as policy coordination in IPR, dispute resolution, and markets for technology and technology transfer.

This volume presents important analyses of international trade, technology transfer and the global economics of intellectual property rights through selected and key works of Keith E Maskus, spanning his long career. The book includes 17 chapters, ranging from theoretical modeling to empirical and statistical analysis, and policy contributions. Readers will find significant questions addressed in the determinants of trade, foreign direct investment, patents and trade, licensing, parallel imports, innovation, and climate change. These chapters span the scope of economic analysis of the globalization of intellectual property and technology transfer, a field in which the author has been a pre-eminent presence.

The rising importance and continuous expansion of intellectual property protection quite naturally goes together with increasing concern about the legal and political foundations of such enhanced protection. Nowhere does the basic equation which underlies intellectual property, namely that the pursuit of short term private interest by the holders of such property will satisfy the public interest in the long term, become both more visible, but also questionable than at the crossroads between the grant and enforcement of exclusive rights with international trade. Catchphrases, such as patent protection and access to essential medicines, or access to genetic resources, benefit sharing and economic development, stand for fundamental tensions and conflicts between private property and the public interest. This book presents the contributions that have been made on these and related topics by a group of internationally renowned experts at a workshop held at the College of Europe, Bruges.

Consumers constantly confront intellectual property rights (IPRs) every day, from their morning cup of Starbucks coffee to the Intel chip on their computer at work. Intellectual property rights help protect creative inventions in the form of trademarks, copyrights, and patents. Despite legal protection, many goods--including music and video files--are easily copied or shared, which affects industries, innovators, and customers. In his follow-up to one of the most popular PIIE titles of all time, Keith Maskus looks at the expansion of private legal rights into international trade markets, not only for technological items but also for international public goods like vaccines and prescription drugs. Private Rights and Public Problems assesses IPR issues for users, producers, and innovators and the difficulty of establishing an international policy regime that governs IPRs in all markets. Post-industrial countries have preferential terms for licensing and selling products, in part because they develop more global brands and products. Maskus observes that in these countries the primacy of private property raises contentious international debate between innovation owners in rich countries and followers and users in emerging and poor countries. Maskus explores if increased privacy regulations limit innovation and pose artificial and real barriers, such as decreased information accessibility and increased cost. This book addresses a fundamental issue: should basic scientific and technological knowledge be commoditized? In this guide to the current global impact of IPRs, the author analyzes the economic contribution of IPRs underlying features: innovation and access to international technologies.

Analysis of the power of multinational corporations in moulding international law on intellectual property rights.

International rules on trade in services and intellectual property arenew additions to the multilateral trading system, but both have played an important role in the system since their entry. Accompanied by a detailed introduction, this volume contains essays which cover not only the law and jurisprudence of these topics but also the underlying economics and politics behind their incorporation into the multilateral system and continued prominence. The volume provides readers with a comprehensive overview of the development of these controversial and increasingly important areas of international trade law.

This volume collects 30 papers covering channels of international technology transfer; multinational firms, market structure, and welfare; intellectual property rights, foreign direct investment, and innovation; flexibilities contained in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS); exhaustion of intellectual property rights and compulsory licensing of patents; trade, foreign direct investment, and industrial policy; and oligopolistic competition, research and development, and vertical contracts.