Global Dimensions of Intellectual Property Rights in Science and Technology (1993) / Chapter Skim
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1 The Global Dimensions of Intellectual Property Rights in Science and Technology
1 The Global Dimensions of Intellectual Property Rights in Science and Technology
Pages 3-18
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From page 3... ...
, such as patents and copyrights, are an important means used by firms to help protect their investments in innovation. They are legal instruments that have been used by governments for centuries to encourage industrial development and economic growth.
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Although international {PR conventions exist, they do not establish specific rights. Instead, the extant international agreements attempt merely to ensure that, in any given country, foreign inventors receive the-same rights as those granted to local inventors.
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that might benefit from more robust world economic growth have been reluctant to accept the premise that stronger {PR protection is in their long-term national interest. This apparent paradox reflects the complexities, conflicts, and uncertainties surrounding IPR issues as they pertain to science and technology.
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One of the major S&T trends that causes increased demand for effective intellectual property protection is the rising cost of R&D and other innovation-related activities. In the pharmaceutical industry, for example, an average expenditure of more than $231 million is required to discover, test, and secure marketing approval for a new drug in the United States (Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, 1992~.
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The issue of how to protect computer software was first 1The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA, 1986) has done a major study of the implications of information-related technologies for intellectual property rights.
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Proponents of patent protection argue that the mental and financial effort required to produce software and the functional uses of software more closely resemble inventive activity rather than artistic creation, and thus patents are the more appropriate analogy. Still others argue for a third approach, some form of sui generis protection (i.e., a unique form of protection for {PRS in computer programs)
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Chakrabarty, allows for the patenting of a broad range of subject matter, including plants and animals, the laws in Europe and Japan generally do not. The European Patent Convention, for example, prohibits patent protection for "plant or animal varieties or essentially biological processes for the production of plants and animals" (Benko, 1987:44~.
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INTERNATIONAL INFRINGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS Increasing levels of infringement have made IPR issues highly visible in recent years; not only does the level of infringement appear to be rising, but there has also been a change in the industries affected. Whereas, in the past, manufacturing of fashion types of consumer goods was primarily affected, today producers of a broad range of industrial goods, including products and processes in such high-technology areas as computer hardware and software, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals, are suffering significant economic losses due to infringement (U.S.
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companies find objectionable is not really infringement, but rather the low level of protection afforded by some countries' intellectual property laws and enforcement, compared with those of the United States and other industrialized countries. The terms infringement, piracy, and counterfeiting are often used interchangeably, but the policy debate would be better served by observing the distinctions among them.
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International Trade Commission, 1988:viii, 4-3~. POLICY TlIEMES AND QUESTIONS During the conference and the preparation of this volume, a discernible pattern of policy themes and questions emerged that should be kept in mind while reviewing the material that follows.
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Opponents argue, on the other hand, that the negative effects of monopolistic restrictions on trade and economic development inherent in {PRS outweigh any benefits from increased innovation and, further, that the worldwide extension of such systems is disadvantageous to the developing countries. These fundamental policy questions can never be answered completely.
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Two important policy questions emerge in this regard: Can economic growth and industrialization in the LDCS and the NICS be sustained on the basis of existing weak protection for intellectual property? When firms from industrialized countries suffer economic losses due to weak intellectual property protection in developing countries, are those losses large enough to endanger their investment in innovation or their ability to survive?
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government has taken a multifaceted, trade-oriented approach to the international {PR issue, an approach that consists of multilateral and bilateral negotiations, as well as unilateral trade measures. General policy questions concern the effectiveness and long-term implications of this overall approach and its various components.
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Antitrust policies in the past have sought to place narrow limits on the legally permissible exploitation of intellectual property rights. In the area of health policy, delays in new drug approval can reduce the effective period of patent protection, and price controls on medicines in many countries reduce the economic return on those products, which are highly R&D intensive.
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Section V then takes up and examines, in turn, the adaptation of existing IPRS to particular, often problematic, new technologies, such as computer software or biotechnology, some of which do not conform well to existing IPR safeguards. Section VI provides a distillation of some of the most salient unresolved IPR issues, as addressed in the closing panel discussion of the conference.
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u.s. Internabona1 Trade Commission.
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