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Begin New Search Topic Intellectual Property/Copyright Political Geography United States

1. International Intellectual Property after the New NAFTA

Author:
Jeremy de Beer
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) is the new high-water mark in international intellectual property (IP) law. CUSMA includes most of the Trans-Pacific Partnership provisions that were suspended in the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, except for a few pharmaceutical-related provisions amended after signing. Canada will be required to make meaningful changes to domestic IP laws, including copyright term extension, criminal penalties for tampering with digital rights management information, restoration of patent terms to compensate for administrative and regulatory delays, broader and longer protection for undisclosed testing data and other data, new civil and criminal remedies for the misappropriation of trade secrets, and additional powers for customs officials to seize and destroy IP-infringing goods.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, Intellectual Property/Copyright, NAFTA, and USMCA
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, North America, and Mexico

2. Intellectual Property and the International Trade Commission An Examination of the Role of the ITC in Protecting IP Rights

Author:
William Alan Reinsch and Jonathan Robinson
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 has been a powerful tool for protecting U.S. intellectual property (IP) rights and the U.S. market from unfair competition for nearly 100 years. The statute empowers the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to ban imports of goods that inappropriately use U.S. intellectual property. Since it was last amended in 1988, however, new issues have emerged with the law and the Commission’s role in enforcing its provisions. As the economy modernizes and intellectual property enters the digital realm, we examine the ITC and its role in enforcing IP rights and suggest possible ways the ITC can modernize its operations to better confront the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Topic:
Intellectual Property/Copyright, Digital Economy, Trade, and Modernization
Political Geography:
United States and North America

3. A Change in the Winds for Software Piracy

Author:
S. Michael Impink Jr.
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Depending on the industry, piracy either stifles economic growth or fosters innovation. In many technology and pharmaceutical industries, piracy impedes innovation because of its deleterious effect on profits, whereas in the fashion industry, piracy drives participants to produce the latest, trendiest designs. The business strategy of software producers, intellectual property owners, and computer device manufacturers has a substantive impact on piracy, not fully captured in the current literature. My research focuses on how business factors—the competitive landscape of device manufacturers, the evolving strategy of intellectual property owners, and the shift away from traditional licensing models—affect intellectual property rights and software piracy in high-growth countries.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Intellectual Property/Copyright, Piracy, and Business
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and North America

4. How the Next U.S. President Can Contain China in Cyberspace

Author:
Adam Segal and Rob Knake
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
When transition planning gets underway in earnest this fall, one of the hardest memos to write will be the outbrief from the current National Security Council (NSC) team on what to do about China’s ongoing campaign of cyber espionage targeting the intellectual property of U.S. companies. While long a focus of both the president’s cyber and China teams, there is little chance that in the coming months the issue is going to be brought to any type of resolution. Instead, the next president will inherit a partially implemented plan that has produced positive results in the short term, but its long-term sustainability remains uncertain. He or she would be wise to follow the playbook left by the Obama administration, with a redoubled focus on the investigation and prosecution of cybercrime. Critics of the administration on this topic generally fall into two camps. One, summed up nicely by the title of a book by Peter Kiernan, is the Becoming China’s Bitch camp.[1] In this view, the United States is so dependent on China that the Chinese can do what they want and there is little Americans can do to stop them. They hold U.S. debt, Americans can’t manufacture anything without them, Chinese students are leaps and bounds smarter than American students, and there are millions more of them studying science and math. The Chinese are strategic, looking around the corner of history and shaping it in their interests. They are playing three-dimensional chess and President Obama has been playing checkers. They put the blame on what they would characterize as Obama’s willingness to “lead from behind.” They then quote Sun Tzu, reference Unrestricted Warfare, and drop the mic.[2] The second view is the Coming Collapse of China camp.[3] In this view, despite an aggressive anti-corruption campaign and a more assertive foreign policy, China is weak, wounded, and dangerous. The Communist Party made a deal with the devil, offering economic growth in exchange for loyalty to the regime. Now, the leadership can’t keep up with their end of the bargain. Growth is slowing, and at a faster pace than the official figures acknowledge. Over investment continues and economic reforms have stalled. Air and water pollution are a drag on the economy and a threat to citizen health. Paranoid about any dissent, the party has tightened restrictions on the Internet and the media and arrested feminists, civil rights activists, and lawyers. One spark could start protests that lead to widespread instability and perhaps the end of Communist Party rule. What’s interesting is that these divergent views of China’s place in the world similarly predict there is little chance that China will cease stealing intellectual property. In the first view, China holds all the cards, and there is simply nothing the United States can do to impose costs and stop the hacking of companies. If China is desperate and dangerous, then it can’t stop stealing technology and business secrets because they are needed to fuel the economy.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Intellectual Property/Copyright, Cybersecurity, and Conflict
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and North America

5. Comparing Transnational IPR Policy: Closing the Gap in Canada's Patenting Regime

Author:
Samah Rahman and Shashanth Shetty
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Canada is lagging behind in research and development (R&D) commercialization, ranking fifteenth in the World Economic Forum’s 2015 Global Competitiveness Report. One of the most important contributing factors to the gap between R&D and competitiveness is that new entrepreneurs lack the monetary and informational resources to access intellectual property (IP) legal expertise. The authors of this brief argue that the Canadian government’s strategies have been ineffective, and its current policy initiatives have failed to consider the importance of disseminating IP legal knowledge directly to innovators. It is recommended that the government look to the models used by the United States and South Korea to mobilize IP legal knowledge within the entrepreneurial community. This can be achieved by establishing a national IP legal clinic at the university level — as well as increasing funding for existing programs and creating a virtual clinic — and including an IP rights application course in select university programs, targeting innovators who will require IP legal advice in the future.
Topic:
Economics and Intellectual Property/Copyright
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, and South Korea

6. The Case for Intellectual Property Rights: Should Patents Be Strengthened, Weakened or Abolished Altogether?

Author:
Joel Blit
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The case for patents rests crucially on three conditions: that innovation is undersupplied in the absence of patents; that patents promote increased innovation; and that the welfare benefits of any additional innovation outweigh the welfare costs associated with the temporary monopoly that patents generate. While it is probably true that innovation is undersupplied, the empirical evidence is mixed on whether patents foster innovation. This may be due to patents stifling cumulative innovation because of holdup and ex ante uncertainty over patent rights. This policy brief recommends that to reduce the potential for holdup, uncertainty around patent rights should be reduced. Patents should be easily searchable and more easily understood by non-legal experts. In addition, patents should be narrower and more clearly demarcated. To the extent that the welfare costs of patents appear to outweigh their benefits, the requirements for obtaining a patent should be tightened. Further, patents should be made less broad and, concomitant with the reduction in the length of the product cycle, the length of patents should also be reduced.
Topic:
Human Welfare, Science and Technology, Intellectual Property/Copyright, and Governance
Political Geography:
United States

7. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Negotiations: Overview and Prospects

Author:
Deborah Elms and C. L. Lim
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade agreement currently under negotiation between nine countries in three continents, including Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States and Vietnam. In late 2011 three additional countries--Japan, Canada and Mexico--announced their intention to join as well. The TPP has always been called a "high quality, 21st century" agreement that covers a range of topics not always found in free trade agreements. This includes not just trade in goods, services and investment, but also intellectual property rights, government procurement, labor, environment, regulations, and small and medium enterprises. This paper traces the complex negotiations and evolution of the talks since the early 2000s to the present.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, International Trade and Finance, Treaties and Agreements, Labor Issues, and Intellectual Property/Copyright
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Malaysia, Canada, Israel, Vietnam, Latin America, Australia, Australia/Pacific, Mexico, Singapore, Chile, Peru, New Zealand, and Brunei

8. "Protectors of Privacy: Regulating Personal Data in the Global Economy" by Abraham L. Newman

Author:
Judith Wagner DeCew
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Abraham Newman has written a thoughtful and provocative book about the protection of privacy and how it has evolved in two dramatically different ways in the European Union and the United States over the past 50 years.
Topic:
Intellectual Property/Copyright
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

9. All costs, no benefits: How TRIPS-plus intellectual property rules in the US-Jordan FTA affect access to medicines

Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Since enactment of the TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement in 1995, the USA has imposed progressively higher levels of intellectual property protection (TRIPS-plus rules) on developing countries, which undermines access to affordable medicines. The US-Jordan free trade agreement (FTA) introduced a rigid framework of TRIPS-plus rules that the USA continues to impose on developing countries, although subsequent FTAs have even stricter levels of intellectual property (IP) protection. Jordan was also required to increase the level of IP protection under the terms of its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Topic:
Health, Treaties and Agreements, World Trade Organization, and Intellectual Property/Copyright
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and Jordan