Intellectual property rights (IPRs)--patents, copyrights, and trademarks--have moved from an arcane area of legal analysis and a policy backwater to the forefront of global economic policymaking. Apple and Samsung's patent battle illustrates the importance of IPRs and how they impact everyone....

Over the past 15 years, intellectual property rights (IPRs)-patents, copyrights, and trademarks-have moved from an arcane area of legal analysis and a policy backwater to the forefront of global economic policymaking. In the 1990s dozens of countries unilaterally strengthened their laws and...