|
|
|
CIAO DATE: 03/01
Foreign Policy
Global Newsstand: Copyrights and Wrongs
Traci Phillips
*
Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review,Vol. 4, 2000, Milwaukee
In theory, everyone stands to gain something from the globalization of laws protecting intellectual property. Businesses, protected from piracy and commercial theft, will be more confident about selling goods or services abroad. Countries, in turn, will benefit from increasing levels of foreign direct investment and access to new technologies. And consumers will not only reap the traditional benefits of increased trade (more choice, potentially lower prices) but will also shop knowing that they are purchasing the genuine article instead of a cheap knockoff.
But the winter edition of the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review-one of dozens of emerging law journals dedicated to the discussion of intellectual property (IP) issues-questions whether the developing world will benefit from multilateral treaties designed to protect innovation. In his article, "Global Technology Protection: Moving Past the Treaty," attorney Todd M. Rowe warns that emerging markets will face very high costs in complying with the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)-a multilateral treaty that requires signatories to establish uniform minimum standards for IP rights, including a minimum duration for that protection. Developing countries will have to purchase state-of-the-art computer equipment and train an army of civil servants to process the flood of applications for patents, copyrights, and trademarks. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, for instance, has estimated that it would cost Bangladesh more than $1.1 million annually to implement and enforce trips. Rowe warns of a potential backlash from developing nations forced to spend relatively large sums of money to protect Western technology at the expense of other needed investments such as health and education.
Instead of signing on to a forced crash course in intellectual-property protection, argues Rowe, developing nations should create their own frameworks at their own pace, just as the United States was allowed to do. While the United States was not entirely free of obligations from international treaties during the 200-yea development of its IP framework, it was able to adapt and change IP protection over time, providing a balance between private and public goods appropriate to its own needs.
The economic trade-offs resulting from such a balancing act are a matter of serious public-policy debate. Nowhere are they more contentious than in the case of pharmaceutical patents. Manufacturers rely heavily on IP rights to recover their investments in an industry generally characterized by high research and development costs and products that can be reverse-engineered and copied with relative ease. Consumers, meanwhile, face higher prices as a result of restrictions on competition from generic drugs.
Under TRIPS, developing nations will be forced to increase the patent protection offered to pharmaceutical products to a uniform 20 years. The implications are staggering. In Kenya, for example, where aids kills 500 people a day, only an estimated 2 percent of the population can afford the necessary drugs to ease suffering and improve quality of life-and that is under a patent regime that offers a mere seven years of protection. Consequently, emerging markets face a Catch-22: Fail to implement TRIPS and risk losing foreign direct investment, or implement TRIPS and risk a potential domestic backlash. Yet in spite of such risks, it is in developing countries' best interest to adopt measures for IP protection. An increasing number of developing countries-India, Malaysia, Singapore, Costa Rica, and Uruguay, to name just a few-are producing high-tech, high-value-added goods that would benefit from better patent protection. Moreover, a number of developing countries have sophisticated export-oriented creative industries, such as film in Argentina or music in Jamaica, which stand to benefit greatly from improved copyright protection in other countries.
Ironically, the best solution might be one that Rowe proposes and then seems to dismiss as impractical: Bilateral negotiations could provide more options for countries than multilateral treaties in determining the appropriate balance in IP protection in their own societies. That way, nations can assess the costs and benefits of various intellectual property laws and negotiate the minimum standards appropriate to their own level of technological development.
Endnotes:
*: Traci Phillips is a consultant on private-sector development issues in Latin America. Back.