Distinguished economists, political scientists, and legal experts discuss the implications of the increasingly globalized protection of intellectual property rights for the ability of countries to provide their citizens with such important public goods as basic research, education, public health, and environmental protection. Such items increasingly depend on the exercise of private rights over technical inputs and information goods, which could usher in a brave new world of accelerating technological innovation. However, higher and more harmonized levels of international intellectual property rights could also throw up high roadblocks in the path of follow-on innovation, competition and the attainment of social objectives. It is at best unclear who represents the public interest in negotiating forums dominated by powerful knowledge cartels. This is the first book to assess the public processes and inputs that an emerging transnational system of innovation will need to promote technical progress, economic growth and welfare for all participants.
• Features contributions from major scholars, aimed at increasing understanding of the challenges raised by global protection of intellectual property • The first sustained attempt to focus attention on the need to balance public-private interests in an emerging transnational system of innovation that lacks global governance mechanisms • Provides a systematic and comprehensive analysis of important issues from a legal and economic perspective
Contents
Part I. International Provision of Public Goods under a Globalized Intellectual Property Regime; Part II. Innovation and Technology Transfer in a Protectionist Environment; Part III. Sectoral Issues; Part IV. Reform and Regulation Issues.
Review
'It is a laudable and, according to the editors, unprecedented, attempt to bring together contributions from a range of authors on a key issue facing the intellectual property world at present. … The authors are distinguished economists, political scientists and legal experts. … this is a thorough and stimulating work, bringing together diverse views of a range of experts on the impact of IP on efforts to tackle the developing world crisis. Given how important and urgent it is for this global issue to be tackled, it is hoped that it will be widely read and provoke greater, and better informed, debate among the broader IP world.' European Intellectual Property Review
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