Intellectual Property Rights

In recent years, Intellectual Property Rights - both in the form of patents and copyrights - have expanded in their coverage, the breadth and depth of protection, and the tightness of their enforcement. Moreover, for the first time in history, the IPR regime has become increasingly uniform at international level by means of the TRIPS agreement, irrespectively of the degrees of development of the various countries. This volume, first, addresses from different angles the effects of IPR on the processes of innovation and innovation diffusion in general, and with respect to developing countries in particular. Contrary to a widespread view, there is very little evidence that the rates of innovation increase with the tightness of IPR even in developed countries. Conversely, in many circumstances, tight IPR represents an obstacle to imitation and innovation diffusion in developing countries. What can policies do then? This is the second major theme of the book which offers several detailed discussions of possible policy measures even within the current TRIPS regime - including the exploitation of the waivers to IPR enforcement that it contains, various forms of development of 'technological commons', and non-patent rewards to innovators, such as prizes. Some drawbacks of the regimes, however, are unavoidable: hence the advocacy in many contributions to the book of deep reforms of the system in both developed and developing countries, including the non-patentability of scientific discoveries, the reduction of the depth and breadth of IPR patents, and the variability of the degrees of IPR protection according to the levels of a country's development.1. Introduction ; PART I: IPR, INNOVATION AND DEVELOPMENT: ECONOMIC HISTORY AND THEORY ; 2. Innovation, Technical Change and Patents in the Development Process: A Long Term View ; 3. Lessons from the Economics Literature on the Likely Consequences of International Harmonization of IPR Protection ; 4. Intellectual Property in the Twenty-First Century: Will the Developing Countries Lead or Follow? ; PART II: KNOWLEDGE APPROPRIATION AND DEVELOPMENT ; 5. Ethical Incentives for Innovation ; 6. Is Bayh-Dole Good for Developing Countries? Lessons from the US Experience ; PART III: EXPERIENCES FROM PUBLIC HEALTH, AGRICULTURE, AND GREEN TECHNOLOGY ; 7. IPRs, Public Health, and the Pharmaceutical Industry: Issues in the Post-2005 TRIPS Agenda ; 8. Innovation, Appropriability, and Productivity Growth in Agriculture: A Broad Historical Viewpoint ; 9. The Distributive Impact of Intellectual Property Regimes: Report from the 'Natural Experiment' of the Green Revolution ; 10. Securing the Global Crop Commons in Support of Agricultural Innovation ; 11. Mode of Entry for Emerging Markets: An Ex-Ante and Ex-Post Perspective of the Open Source Development and Management of Biotechnology Knowledge Assets ; 12. Intellectual Property and Alternatives: Strategies for Green Innovations ; 13. Economic and Legal Considerations for the International Transfer of Environmentally Sound Technologies ; PART IV: CHALLENGES FOR GOVERNANCE AND POLICYMAKING ; 14. Multilateral Agreements and Policy Opportunities ; 15. Preferential Trade Agreements and Intellectual Property Rights ; 16. Industrial Policy and IPR: A Knowledge Governance Approach ; PART V. CONCLUSION ; Policy Options and Requirements for Institutional Reform