Intellectual Property Rights in the Global Economy / Edition 1

by Keith Maskus

Overview

Over the past 15 years, intellectual property rights (IPRs)-patents, copyrights, and trademarks-have moved from an arcane area of legal analysis and a policy backwater to the forefront of global economic policymaking. In the 1990s dozens of countries unilaterally strengthened their laws and regulations in this area, and many others are poised to do likewise. At the multilateral level, the successful conclusion of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) in the World Trade Organization elevates the protection and enforcement of IPRs to the level of solemn international commitment.

The new global IPR system comes with both benefits and costs. Stronger IPRs protection should increase incentives for innovation and raise returns to international technology transfer. However, it also could raise the costs of acquiring new technology and products, shifting the global terms of trade in favor of technology producers and against technology consumers. In this context, the new regime raises international economic policy questions that evoke impassioned and exaggerated claims from both advocates and opponents of IPRs, particularly concerning sensitive issues such as patent protection of pharmaceuticals and biotechnological inventions, and copyright protection for internet transactions.

In the first comprehensive economic assessment of the effects of stronger international IPRs, Keith E. Maskus examines these competing claims through an analysis of the economic effects of extended international protection and partial harmonization of IPRs. He presents findings on the potential effects of stronger global IPRs, including likely impacts on foreign direct investment, technology transfer, and pricing under enhanced market power. The results bear directly on several important policy questions, including the construction of complementary initiatives on market liberalization and competition rules, and Maskus discusses whether priority attention should be devoted to them in the upcoming next round of global trade talks.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780881322828
Publisher:	Peterson Institute for International Economics
Publication date:	08/01/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Keith E. Maskus, visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, is professor of economics and associate dean for social sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is also a fellow at the Kiel Institute for World Economics and an adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide. He is author of Private Rights and Public Problems: The Global Economics of Intellectual Property in the 21st Century (2012).

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Acknowledgments	xv
1	Introduction: The Issue Is Deeper than American Movies	1
	The Evolving Global System	3
	Economic Issues	6
	Objectives of the Study	7
	Organization of the Volume and Summary of Findings	9
2	A Road Map for the TRIPs Ahead	15
	General Obligations	17
	Copyrights	17
	Trademarks and Indications	19
	Patents	20
	Integrated Circuits	22
	Trade Secrets	22
	Control of Anticompetitive Practices	24
	Enforcement	24
	Transition Periods	25
	Administration of TRIPs	25
	Summary	26
3	Globalization and the Economics of Intellectual Property Rights: Dancing the Dual Distortion	27
	Economics of Intellectual Property Rights	28
	Structures and Objectives of IPRs	36
	Sectoral Reliance on IPRs	51
	The Evolving US System: Protectionism Unchained?	65
	Globalization and the Technology Content of Trade	66
	Pressures for Change in the Global IPRs System	83
	Summary	84
4	The Global Effects of Intellectual Property Rights: Measuring What Cannot Be Seen	87
	Measuring Intellectual Property Rights across Borders	88
	Determinants of Intellectual Property Rights	102
	The Effects of IPRs on International Economic Activity	109
	IPRs and International Technology Transfer	136
	Summary	141
5	Intellectual Property Rights and Economic Development: Patents, Growth, and Growing Pains	143
	How IPRs Contribute to Development	145
	Global Research and Development	156
	How IPRs Hamper Economic Development	157
	Evidence on the Overall Impact of IPRs on Growth	169
	Summary	169
6	The Global Policy Framework: Intellectual Property Rights and Wrongs?	171
	Putting TRIPs into Action	171
	TRIPs as an Economic Optimizer	192
	Regional Initiatives	194
	Summary	197
7	Benefiting from Intellectual Property Protection: Take the Medicine, but Get Some Exercise, Too	199
	National Policies to Optimize IPRs	200
	IPRs and Social Regulation	216
	International Initiatives	225
	Summary	232
8	Conclusions and Policy Recommendations: Are We There Yet?	235
	Where We Are	235
	Where We Are Going	238
	Does TRIPs Belong in the WTO?	238
	The Way Forward Is to Be Forward-Looking	239
	References	243
	Index	255
	Tables
Table 2.1	Substantive requirements of the TRIPs agreement in the WTO	18
Table 3.1	Instruments and agreements for protecting IPRs	37
Table 3.2	Patent applications in selected countries	68
Table 3.3	Trademark applications in selected countries	70
Table 3.4	Applications for registrations of plant varieties in selected countries	71
Table 3.5	Indicators of demand for copyright products in selected countries	72
Table 3.6	Trade in IPR-sensitive goods for selected countries	74
Table 3.7	Trade in IPR-sensitive services and royalties and license fees	80
Table 3.8	Inward and outward stocks of foreign direct investment	82
Table 4.1	Membership trends in key intellectual property conventions	89
Table 4.2	Qualitative trends in intellectual property protection, selected countries	92
Table 4.3	Indices of the strength of IPRs laws	95
Table 4.4	Survey indices of perceived strength of IPRs	98
Table 4.5	Estimated rates of software piracy and lost revenues	100
Table 4.6	Determinants of Ginarte-Park Patent Rights Index	106
Table 4.7	1985 income levels and 1990 predicted patent indices	108
Table 4.8	Simulated increases in total imports by sector into developing countries resulting from strengthened patent laws	115
Table 4.9	Percentage of firms claiming that strength or weakness of IPRs has a strong effect on whether direct investments will be made, by type of facility, 1991	126
Table 4.10	Percentage of firms claiming that intellectual property protection is too weak to permit type of investment, 1991	128
Table 4.11	Simultaneous equations models of the impact of patent strength on international exploitation of intellectual assets	132
Table 4.12	Estimates of the general-equilibrium knowledge capital model	134
Table 5.1	Simulated static effects of stronger IPRs enforcement in Lebanon, 1996	158
Table 6.1	Estimated static rent transfers from TRIPs-induced strengthening of 1998 patent laws	184
Table 6.2	Estimates of how TRIPs patent changes affect international flows of economic activity for selected countries	187
Table 7.1	Summary of IPRs exhaustion regimes	210
	Figures
Figure 3.1	Basic access innovation trade-off in IPRs	30
Figure 4.1	Relationship between patent rights and per capita GNP	104

Editorial Reviews

Excellent. Well-written, concise and mercifully lacking in economic technical jargon... It should be required reading for IP students; for IP advisors and their clients.

International Journal of Law and Information Technology

[O]ne of the best books ever written about intellectual property rights (IPRs). Maskus's book takes us a long way from your everyday faith-based approach to global IPRs, and anyone embarking down the trail he blazes had better fasten their safety belts.

Journal of International Economic Law - J.H. Reichman