2011/06 | LEM Working Paper Series | |
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Innovation, technical change and patents in the development process: A long term view |
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Mario Cimoli, Giovanni Dosi, Roberto Mazzoleni, Bhaven Sampat |
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Keywords | ||
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Intellectual Property Rights, Catching-up, Imitation, Development, TRIPS
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Abstract | ||
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An essential aspect of "catching up" by developing countries is the
emulation of technological leaders and the rapid accumulation by
individuals and organizations of the knowledge and capabilities needed
in order to sustain processes of technical learning. The rates and
patterns of development of such capabilities are fundamentally shaped
by the opportunities that indigenous organizations have to enter and
operate in particular markets and technology areas. However, knowledge
accumulation is also influenced by the governance of intellectual
property rights (IPRs). The purpose of this work - prepared for a
volume of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University,
Intellectual and Property Rights Taskforce - is to offer an assessment
of such influences in the long term, beginning with the early episodes
of industrialization all the way to the present regime. The historical
record is indeed quite diverse and variegated. However if there is a
robust historical fact, it is the laxity or sheer absence of
intellectual property rights in nearly all instances of successful
catching up. We begin by reviewing a few theoretical arguments that
economists have formulated on the effects of a system of patent
protection. We will then review the historical evidence on the roles
of patents in economic development. Next we discuss the changes in
the IPR regime that have taken place roughly over the last third of a
century in the United States. The reason for focusing on the United
States is that doing so will outline the broad template of patent
policy reform that has been adopted by policy makers in many other
countries as a result of a varying mix of external pressures, myopia,
corruption and ideological blindness. The final part of this essay,
explores the likely impact of harmonization of international patent
laws - including TRIPS - on developing countries.
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