Intangibles, Technology Trade and India: Challenges in a Knowledge-Based Economy

Abstract

Globalization has brought about profound changes in national and multinational perspectives regarding the regulation of technology transfers and exports. The integration of markets and ideas, and the digital and electronic revolutions, has enabled transnational exchange of goods, services and information through intangible networks. Governments are now faced with new challenges for regulating these networks, whether for patent security or national security, or for controlling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Many of these challenges were underlined in a grim fashion on 11 September 2001, with the ease of terrorist planning and execution of attacks on key US targets including the ‘Twin Towers’ of the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC.