Intellectual property

The WIPO-WTO Colloquium Papers is a peer-reviewed academic journal published jointly by the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization each year since 2010. Providing a uniquely representative and diverse showcase for emerging IP scholarship from across the globe the journal aims to stimulate analysis and debate on intellectual property (IP) issues particularly of interest to developing countries. And it offers an avenue for the dissemination of a broader and more geographically diverse and representative range of scholarship than is common in much of the academic literature on IP law and policy.

The interplay between patents and standards in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector has been intensively debated at international regional and national levels over the past decades. In essence the debate is firstly about the extent and impact of patent holdup and holdout in the ICT sector and then about how to eliminate or reduce these practices.

The WIPO-WTO Colloquium Papers is a peer-reviewed academic journal published jointly by the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization each year since 2010. Providing a uniquely representative and diverse showcase for emerging IP scholarship from across the globe the journal aims to stimulate analysis and debate on intellectual property (IP) issues particularly of interest to developing countries. And it offers an avenue for the dissemination of a broader and more geographically diverse and representative range of scholarship than is common in much of the academic literature on IP law and policy.

This paper examines the evolution of national competition (antitrust) policies and enforcement approaches vis-à-vis intellectual property rights (IPRs) and associated anti-competitive practices in major jurisdictions over the past several decades. It focuses especially on the underlying process of economic learning that has the authors suggest driven relevant policy changes.

The WIPO-WTO Colloquium Papers is a peer-reviewed academic journal published jointly by the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization each year since 2010. Providing a uniquely representative and diverse showcase for emerging IP scholarship from across the globe the journal aims to stimulate analysis and debate on intellectual property (IP) issues particularly of interest to developing countries. And it offers an avenue for the dissemination of a broader and more geographically diverse and representative range of scholarship than is common in much of the academic literature on IP law and policy.

The WIPO-WTO Colloquium Papers is a peer-reviewed academic journal published jointly by the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization each year since 2010. Providing a uniquely representative and diverse showcase for emerging IP scholarship from across the globe the journal aims to stimulate analysis and debate on intellectual property (IP) issues particularly of interest to developing countries. And it offers an avenue for the dissemination of a broader and more geographically diverse and representative range of scholarship than is common in much of the academic literature on IP law and policy.

This is a revision and update of "Intellectual Property Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements" by Valdés and Runyowa (2012). This paper adjusts the methodology applied to assess the intellectual property (IP) provisions contained in regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the aggregation of such provisions into groups; it also updates the RTAs surveyed from 194 in November 2010 to 245 in February 2014. New information contained in this revision relates to three IP-related investment and non-violation provisions in RTAs. The methodological revisions and new information result in changes to the assessment of the IP content of certain RTAs while the update reveals a growing and increasingly complex network of RTAs with IP content. This revision also provides new insights into possible improvements to the methodological toolkit for analysing IP in RTAs. The paper assembles detailed information about the IP provisions contained in active RTAs notified to the WTO. The goal was to expand beyond the more commonly studied RTAs to review the full array of agreements notified to the WTO and thus to enable consideration of the implications of this diverse range of norm-setting activity for the multilateral system. Mapping of the IP content in RTAs involving parties from all regions and levels of development is necessary to better understand crosscutting trends in RTAs and how all the parts of the international IP framework influence each other. The methodology followed involved surveying each RTA in the sample to determine whether it made reference to any of 32 different IP-related provisions. Two of the three IP-related provisions new to this revision and update are investment-related IP provisions while the other concerns dispute settlement for non-violation claims. The relevant provisions are discussed in detail and summary statistics used to identify patterns over time and by continent level of economic development and selected traders. The number of IP provisions in each RTA is then used to classify agreements according to their level of IP content. The first significant identified trend is the acceleration in the conclusion of RTAs with IP provisions after the creation of the WTO and the entry into force of the WTO TRIPS Agreement. A significant proportion of those RTAs contain some type of IP provision but the number and type of those provisions vary widely across agreements. A majority of the RTAs surveyed include general IP provisions while a smaller proportion contains explicit provisions on specific fields of IP law such as geographical indications patents trademarks and copyright. The inclusion of even more detailed provisions elaborating on specific areas of IP law is less common. As a result the actual IP content of RTAs differs greatly across the sample with slightly less than half of these agreements found to havesubstantive IP standards that can be classified as moderate or high. The RTAs containing a high level of IP provisions are characterized by a hub-and-spoke architecture in which the wording and structure of IP provisions converged around the RTAs of specific countries or blocs. The largest systems are grouped around the EFTA the European Union and the United States. The hub-and-spoke architecture seems to have encouraged the convergence of domestic IP regimes among the respective RTA signatories. The mechanics of this potentially crucial process and its economic implications require further investigation.

The WIPO-WTO Colloquium Papers is a peer-reviewed academic journal published jointly by the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization each year since 2010. Providing a uniquely representative and diverse showcase for emerging IP scholarship from across the globe the journal aims to stimulate analysis and debate on intellectual property (IP) issues particularly of interest to developing countries. And it offers an avenue for the dissemination of a broader and more geographically diverse and representative range of scholarship than is common in much of the academic literature on IP law and policy.

Competition agency guidelines policy statements and related advocacy are an important vehicle for policy expression and the guidance of firms across the full spectrum of anti-competitive practices and market conduct.