The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Treaties

UC Berkeley, Center for Competition Policy Working Paper No. CPC01-24

31 Pages Posted: 17 Feb 2004

See all articles by Suzanne Scotchmer

Suzanne Scotchmer

University of California - Department of Economics (Deceased); University of California, Berkeley - School of Law; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: August 2001

Abstract

Intellectual property treaties have two main types of provisions: national treatment of foreign inventors, and harmonization of protections. I characterize the circumstances in which countries would want to treat foreign inventors the same as national inventors. I then argue that national treatment of foreign inventors leads to stronger intellectual property protection than is optimal, and that this effect is exacerbated when protections must be harmonized. However levels of public and private R&D spending will be lower than if each country took account of the uncompensated externalities that its R&D spending confers on other countries. The stronger protection engendered by attempts at harmonization are a partial remedy.

Keywords: Intellectual Property, Globalization, TRIPS, treaty

JEL Classification: F1, L5

Suggested Citation

Scotchmer, Suzanne, The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Treaties (August 2001). UC Berkeley, Center for Competition Policy Working Paper No. CPC01-24, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=502722 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.502722

Suzanne Scotchmer (Contact Author)

University of California - Department of Economics (Deceased)

Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
United States

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law

215 Boalt Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-7200
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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