Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights: Developing Countries,agricultural Biotechnology, and the Trips Agreement

P arallel revolutions in molecular biology and intellectual property rights over plant genetic resources helped spur the emergence of agricultural biotechnologies and the introduction of genetically modified (GM) products into the food system. Intellectual property rights create economic incentives for research and development by giving innovators claim to the benefits associated with new technologies. Yet although intellectual property rights (or IPRs) purport to protect intellectual property, innovators may not always be able to fully appropriate the benefits associated with the innovation. When it is profitable for technology users to infringe on IPR, their compliance with IPR provisions is by no means assured. Costly monitoring and enforcement are required to deter unauthorized use of the new technology. Experience from various countries around the world shows that the enforcement of technology use contracts (between technology providers and farmers, for example) and other means of protecting intellectual property is far from perfect, and most, if not all, successful innovations are subject to piracy. This is particularly true in developing countries, where opposition to the very granting of IPRs for agricultural crops is growing. In addition to monopolistic rents transferred to foreign IPR holders, concerns of developing countries include environmental safety and food security. The result is a widespread violation of innovators' rights in these countries, which has become a major international issue. Concerns about the protection of intellectual property led to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs) during the Uruguay Round of negotiations for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Under this agreement , administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO), innovators in one country whose rights are being violated in another country have a means of defense through a dispute settlement mechanism. Within the next few years the agreement is scheduled to be fully in force among all WTO members, including the poorer countries that were given some leeway in putting intellectual property legislation in place and into practice. The magnitude of fines to be imposed, however, has yet to be determined. While innovators have actively lobbied for the effective enforcement of their rights, their pricing behavior reveals preferential treatment of customers who least respect their intellectual property. Multinational firms claiming rights usually charge significantly lower prices for the use of protected technologies in markets with lax IPR enforcement than in markets with effective enforcement. In Argentina, where 50–85 percent of the Roundup Ready© soybean seeds grown …