Transcript Overview presentation

Strategic Dialogue on Coherence Between Multilateral,
Regional and Bilateral Processes on Intellectual
Property and a pro-Development Agenda on IPRs
20 November 2003
Founder's Hall, University of Miami
“Managing the Challenge of a Globalized
Intellectual Property Regime”
Assad omer
Main points
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Basic message
Observation
Propositions
Challenges
Proposals
– Safeguards
– Opportunities
Basic message
Knowledge-based global economy
Determinants to compete in innovation driven
markets:
the abilities to create new technology and to
acquire and adapt technologies from both
external and internal sources
Challenge to establish and maintain
effective access to this information and to devise
mechanisms for deploying it effectively within
the economy.
Observations
• Risks that access to these critical technologies be
limited in an overly protectionist intellectual
property environment (proliferation of legal
monopolies and related barriers to entry making
innovation costly and difficult)
• Competition in innovation based markets may be
restricted by a progressive re-regulation (not
properly balance incentive to innovate against the
needs for dissemination of knowledge)
Propositions
• Higher levels of IP protection may produce specific
incentive effects on local innovative capacity - FDI,
licensing, and the purchasing of knowledge goods – at the expense of free competition
• Lower levels of IP protection favour free competition
– at the expense of legal incentives to innovate or create
• Effects on cost of innovation; follow-on applications;
refusals to deal, barriers to entry
– discourages firms from undertaking adaptations and
improvements
Technological advances
• Under much less regulated and much more
competitive conditions
• With easier and less costly access to essential
scientific and technical inputs
Competition in technology advances
• Availability of stock of knowledge: technology into
public domain and public goods
• Access to the stock increases incentives to invest
in innovation and R&D, by means of IPRs
• To generate creative outputs all innovators borrow
inputs from each other and from the public
domain
• Example: Open Source Software:Linux and OS X
• Access and use of commons for public research
purposes on favourable and affordable terms
• Does not mean without payment
Challenges
• To preserve an appropriate balance of public and
private interests
• To promote competition for lowering barriers to
entry, reducing transaction costs, and preserving
access to inputs - especially scientific data and
technical information - at acceptable costs
• What to do and how?
Proposals: Policy principles
• Access to technological information on a
competitive basis and on fair and equitable terms
and conditions
• Flexibility in the ways the standards be
incorporated into their domestic legal systems
• Control anticompetitive practices by technology
rights holders which unduly impede the transfer
and dissemination of technology
A Moratorium on New International
Intellectual Property Standards
• To suspend further harmonization exercises
• Example of new European database protection
right
• Why to harmonize while there is on-going reform
in many areas of IP?
• Pursue policies that avoid free riding practices
undermining the incentive to invest in new
technologies everywhere
Proposals: Supporting structures
• Setting up of interministerial coordination
committees at the national/regional levels
• Pool regional and global expertise as a permanent
infrastructure to support the work of negotiators
• Formulate broad-based policies and practices to
resist undesirable levels of protection
Opportunities
Numerous areas
• Strengthening Trade Secret, Trade Mark and
Related Laws
• Using Laws Protecting Geographical Indications of
Origin
• Search for alternative protection and promotion
mechanisms
• Compensatory Liability Regimes to Protect SmallScale Innovation
• Preserving the Worldwide Research Commons for
Scientific Data and Technical Information
• Strengthening Competition Laws and Policy
• Bargaining Around International Intellectual
Property Standards
• Differentiating Intellectual Property Policies by GDP
Per Capita Capacities