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The Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights: Much Ado About Nothing?

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The Global Politics of Science and Technology - Vol. 1

Part of the book series: Global Power Shift ((GLOBAL))

Abstract

It is hardly surprising that companies try to exploit their intellectual property rights (IPRs) globally. This has generated heated debates about the advantages and disadvantages associated with the global regime of IPRs. The aim of this chapter is to put the debate in the right context of what IP can actually do, and what they cannot do, in order to reward inventors and innovators and to prevent imitators. The generation, transmission and diffusion of knowledge are complex phenomena and both supporters and detractors of IPRs often tend to exaggerate the effects that IPRs have in the economy and society. We present two ideal-type models for and against IPRs and discuss their limitations. In our view, both models overemphasize the role of IPRs in the world economy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See among others: Archibugi and Filippetti (2010); Drahos and Mayne (2002); Henry and Stiglitz (2010); Maskus (2000).

  2. 2.

    For an analysis of the patent offices in the new global context, see Drahos (2010). The concentration of patents in a few hundred multinational corporations has been analysed by Patel and Pavitt (1997) and Cantwell and Iammarino (2003).

  3. 3.

    On 4th July 2013, President Barack Obama himself expressed concern that there are too much patents in the USA that do not reflect genuine inventive activity and to reduce “frivolous litigations”. White House 2013.

  4. 4.

    If products such as CDs, DVDs and software could not be technically copied, they would not even need to rely on intellectual property rights since the standard property rights will be more than sufficient to protect the producer.

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Acknowledgment

Part of this research has been supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship project FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF-298167-REGIO_SPIN, under the EC Grant Agreement No: PIEF-GA-2011-298167.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Italian National Research Council, IRPPS, Rome, Italy

    Daniele Archibugi

  2. Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK

    Daniele Archibugi

  3. London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Geography and Environment, London, UK

    Andrea Filippetti

  4. Italian National Research Council, Institute of Regional Studies, Rome, Italy

    Andrea Filippetti

Authors
  1. Daniele Archibugi
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  2. Andrea Filippetti
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Correspondence to Daniele Archibugi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bonn Center for Global Studies, Bonn, Germany

    Maximilian Mayer

  2. GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany

    Mariana Carpes

  3. Institute of Political Science and Sociology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany, Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE), Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany, Bonn, Bochum, Germany

    Ruth Knoblich

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Archibugi, D., Filippetti, A. (2014). The Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights: Much Ado About Nothing?. In: Mayer, M., Carpes, M., Knoblich, R. (eds) The Global Politics of Science and Technology - Vol. 1. Global Power Shift. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55007-2_8

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