The Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights: Four Learnt Lessons and Four Theses

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) have become ubiquitous in the current debate and have emerged as the key issue of global innovation policy. The ‘Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights’ (TRIPS), signed on 1994 as a founding element of the World Trade Organization, represent the most important attempt to establish a global harmonization of Intellectual Property protection. The aim of this paper is to critically re-examine what has become the common wisdom around IPRs, TRIPS and their effects. We argue that supporters of IPRs in the Western corporations and governments as well as detractors in global movements and developing countries have both overestimated their importance in the process of generation and diffusion of knowledge and innovation. On the basis of some key learnt lessons on the nature of innovation and technological change, we assess four theses about TRIPS and their impact on the global generation and distribution of knowledge. The policy implications concerning international organizations and technological transfer are finally discussed.