International Public Goods and Transfer of Technology under a Globalized Intellectual Property Regime

Duke Law School : April 4 - 6, 2003

This major conference will focus the attention of leading economic and legal scholars on the bigger picture that is emerging from the upward harmonization of international intellectual property rights (IPRs) since the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of 1994. Global IPRs are expected to increase innovation and trade in high technology goods, in addition to reducing costs of transferring proprietary information across borders. Despite these benefits, a “one size fits all” model raises fundamental concerns for the well-being of developing countries and, indeed, for small and medium-sized firms and researchers everywhere. Incentives to innovate must be balanced against the need for diffusion of new technologies, while measures to overcome market failure should not impoverish the public domain or unduly hinder healthy competition. Ever stronger and globally more comprehensive IPRs may turn out to impede the promotion of such public goods as sustainable development, widespread health care, technology transfer, and broad-based advances in science and education. They may also create barriers to entry and other anticompetitive effects.

The drive to harmonize IPR norms has been pushed forward in the name of expanding private rights with insufficient attention to the balance of public and private interests that traditionally underlies both intellectual property rights and the national systems of innovation they support. As the forward momentum of international trade negotiations heads toward an integrated global market, more light must be shed on the public processes and inputs that will be indispensable to any transnational system of innovation aiming to promote technical progress, economic growth and welfare for all participants. This is not merely a matter of vital interest to developing countries; it also affects the continuing ability of firms in developed countries to innovate in a more protective global environment.

This will be the first major conference to analyze the complex conceptual foundations of the new global IPR regime based on both legal and economic reasoning. It will examine ways and means to minimize social costs and enhance the benefits that could ensue from TRIPS and other international agreements by deliberately taking the promotion of public goods into account. An exceptional roster of distinguished economists, political scientists, legal scholars and others will address the following topics:

1. International Provision of Public Goods in the New Regime
2. Technology Transfer in the 21st Century
3. Reforming the Global IPR System to Promote Public Goods
4. Ensuring Access to Essential Medicines
5. Stimulating Local Innovation
6. The Critical Role of Competition Law in Preserving Public Goods
7. Preserving the Cultural and Scientific Commons
8. Recognition of Public Goods in WTO Dispute Settlement
9. Assessing the Suitability of IPRs for Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Industries

The conference is being organized by Keith Maskus, Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and former lead research economist at the World Bank, and Jerome Reichman, the Bunyan S. Womble Professor of Law at Duke Law School.