ABSTRACT
Introduction and conceptual framework
International public goods and intellectual property rights
Technology transfer after the TRIPS agreement
Re-regulating the global marketplace to protect knowledge as a private good
Legal and organizational impediments to the creation and diffusion of knowledge goods
Preserving temporary competitive advantages with international intellectual property standards
Instability and loss of balance in developed intellectual property regimes
Exporting a dysfunctional system to the rest of the world?
Impact of intellectual property standards on the reserved welfare powers of WTO members
Balancing public and private interests in an emerging transnational system of innovation
Developing countries as defenders of the competitive ethos
A moratorium on stronger international intellectual property standards
An institutional infrastructure for reconciling existing IPRs with national and regional systems of innovation
Maintaining the supply of knowledge as a global public good
Dynamic properties of knowledge as a global public good
Nurturing a transnational system of innovation
336Global trade and investment have become increasingly liberalized in recent decades. This liberalization has lately been accompanied by substantive new requirements for strong minimum standards of intellectual property (IP) protection, which moves the world economy toward harmonized private rights in knowledge goods. While this trend may have beneficial impacts in terms of innovation and technology diffusion, such impacts would not be evenly distributed across countries. Deep questions also arise about whether such globalization of rights to information will raise roadblocks to the national and international provision of such public goods as environmental protection, public health, education, and scientific advance. This chapter argues that the globalized IP regime will strongly affect prospects for technology transfer and competition in developing countries. In turn, these nations must determine how to implement such standards in a pro-competitive manner and how to foster innovation and competition in their own markets. Developing countries may need to take the lead in policy experimentation and IP innovation in order to offset overly protectionist tendencies in the rich countries and to maintain the supply of global public goods in an emerging transnational system of innovation.
