Transcript Slide 1

WIPO/AEPPI International Symposium on
Intellectual Property: Challenges for
Developing Countries in a Global Economy
Balancing Incentive with Access:
Integrating Intellectual Property
with Other Areas of Public Policy
Pushpendra Rai
World Intellectual Property Organization
Cairo
December 2 and 3, 2007
WIPO Strategic Goal
Promoting a balanced IP
system and realizing its
development potential
Incentives…Access
Incentives…
Incentive:
Innovation Protection
• Provides safeguards against misappropriation of
proprietary technology and opportunistic behavior
• Ensures dynamic benefits at the expense of static
costs
• Reduces uncertainty of investments vs certainty of
profits (before vs after)
• Imperative for State to intervene due to two
characteristics
– Non-rivalrousness:
• simultaneous use by multiple entities
• no bottlenecks or capacity constraints
– Non-excludability:
• use without authorization cannot be prevented
Protection Challenges
twin challenges
internal challenge
actual operation
of the system
external challenge
economic and social
impact of the patent system
actual operation
of the system
• success has created
workload pressures
• increasing time taken to
grant a patent
• complexity and range of
new technologies
• sheer quantity of
applications and
capacity constraints
economic and social
impact of the patent system
Global Patent Filings
Total
Res
: 80%
: 46%
Non-Res: 171%
But patents granted risen only by 4% annually (avg)
1'800'000
1'600'000
1'400'000
1'200'000
Total
Filings
1'000'000
800'000
600'000
Resident
400'000
200'000
19
85
19
87
19
89
19
91
19
93
19
95
19
97
19
99
20
01
20
03
0
Non-Res
Total
Global Patent Grants
actual operation
of the system
• success has created
workload pressures
economic and social impact
of the patent system
• general perceptions apprehension and unease
• increasing time taken to • hampering governments’
attempts
to
deal
with
grant a patent
urgent policy issues
• complexity and range of
• protection to some forms
new technologies
of new technology
• sheer quantity of
• serving to commodify vital
applications and
technological information capacity constraints
leave in public domain
…Access
Enabling Access
• Enhancing capacity of MS to utilize IP for development
• Instituting IP policies conforming to national
developmental plans/public interest objectives
• Utilizing options/flexibilities available in the international
IP regime
• Developing tools to enhance the understanding of the IP
system by innovators, research institutions, SMEs and
the creative industries
• Expeditiously formulating balanced norms/ policies in
response to emerging demands, in areas such as TK,
Patents, New Technologies
• Responding to growing demands for improved services
under the global IP protection systems
– PCT : 147,500 applications - 8 % increase
– Madrid: 37,224 registrations - 12 % increase
Related Public Policy Issues
• Analysis of the interface between IP and
competition policy
– How to balance exclusive rights granted by the IP system
and the objectives of competition policy?
– How can competition policy help to ensure that the IP
system meets its objectives ?
• Evidence on the impact of the IP system on the
ability of governments to deal with issues relating to
–
–
–
–
public health concerns
technology transfer; strategic patenting
Fair use, exceptions and limitations (copyright)
IPR in agriculture/biotech/software/music industry
Other Recent
Considerations …
United States GAO Report on “U.S. Trade
Policy Guidance on WTO Declaration on
Access to Medicines May Need Clarification”*
• Consistent approach by USTR in negotiating,
implementing, and monitoring its trade agreements
under TPA—namely, by protecting the minimum
standards of IP rights provided in TRIPS and
promoting high IP standards similar to U.S. law
• Other than making concessions on compulsory
licensing/parallel importation provisions, and on side
letters that state that the IP chapter does not affect a
country’s ability to take necessary public health
measures, USTR has not changed its uniformly
high demands with regard to IP protection in its
FTAs
*(GAO -07-1198: Sep 2007)
• The degree to which USTR’s policy has achieved
the right balance of IP protection and attention
to public health, and more specifically whether it
has respected the Doha Declaration as called for
under TPA, depends in part on the stakeholder
asking the question
• This reflects a fundamental tension between
protecting IP rights in order to allow companies
to recoup investment and encourage innovation
for the long term, and allowing competitors to sell
lower cost drugs for short term public health
needs
• As Congress contemplates renewal of TPA, there
are ongoing questions about the overall balance
of IP rights and public health
OECD Report: Innovation and Growth –
Rationale for an Innovation Strategy*
• How to strike an appropriate balance between
providing incentives to innovators and access to
new knowledge for users
• Balance shifting towards “pro-IPR policies”
• If strong IPRs are needed for incentives for creative
activities, should not endow the holder with such
broad rights as to block all access to new
knowledge
• In the emerging innovation environment role played
by IPR goes far beyond simply ensuring market
exclusivity to the inventor
*(OECD 2007 http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/2/31/39374789.pdf)
• Policy challenge - design a system to encourage
both invention and diffusion in various ways and in
a wide range of economic and technological contexts
• In each field, a new balance should be struck
between rights to control and to access strengthen their link with other components of
innovation policies, instead of the current tendency to
conceive them in isolation
• IPR policy should go beyond the design of the basic,
essential legal framework which defines rights and
obligations of IPR holders - should also develop
complementary instruments
– Encouraging the commercialization/monetization of IPRs
– Access, standards - encouraging pooling mechanisms,
platforms, socially responsible licensing, patent misuse
– exemptions to copyright in the light of different use
– Reviewing and clarifying exemptions for research use
– Promoting a more active and open commercialization policy
for universities
…and of course the
WIPO Development
Agenda
Hopefully all these debates will
enable the global IP community
to strike the correct balance
between providing incentives to
the right holder and access to
the public, thereby facilitating
the promotion of a
balanced IP system
Thank you