ABSTRACT
This chapter provides qualitative ratings for strength of intellectual property rights (IPRs), piracy, reverse engineering capacity and economic growth potential. It outlines the patterns of IPRs protection, investment in research and development, domestic inventions and technology purchase across countries and to provide a general discussion as to their relationship to different stages of development. No new agreements or conventions regarding IPRs were developed as a consequence of the North-South debate, largely because the North resisted all changes. The chapter explains that some developing countries are significant markets for IPR-protected technology. Technology buyers purchased most of their technology from industrialized countries. Technology sellers sell the bulk of their technology to industrialized countries, although developing countries do find significant downstream markets in semi-industrialized and developing countries. Recent developments in the classification and assignment of patented inventions to Industry of Manufacture and Industry of Use enable the examination and comparison of inventions by industrial focus.
