Development in the Age of IP

Abstract

Economic and social development are closely tied to progress in innovation, as history illustrates clearly. Inventions such as the steam engine changed the course of human history in a matter of decades. This innovative surge has only increased in pace over time, though not equally for all nations. Currently, attempts to stimulate innovation and spur development though the standardization of intellectual property rights across the globe may be having the effect of furthering the gap between developed and developing nations. This paper examines the theoretical, philosophical and economic underpinnings of one aspect of intellectual property(IP), namely patents, and attempts to explain the effect of patent regimes on the developing world. It begins by examining the patent system’s effect on innovation and the effect of innovation on development in the closed system of a single state. It then examines how IP behaves when broadened to a system of interconnected but competitive states. The following sections look at the development-specific aspects of the two major international IP regimes, The World Intellectual Property Organization(WIPO) and and the WTO’s Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs). The penultimate section concerns itself with how developing states negotiate for their best interests in the face of the economic and political clout of the developed world. Known as regime shifting, developing states can use horizontal movement along various IP and non-IP regimes to create favorable conditions for negotiation elsewhere. This process is made possible by the recent proliferation of regimes in multiple issue areas such as health and human rights. The so-called regime complexity which arises, where an abundance of rules exist across multiple venues, allows states to choose their battlegrounds under the most favorable conditions.