Intellectual property rights--copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, and related rights--have become increasingly important with the advent of increased international trade, global and knowledge-based economy and fast developing technology. A strong intellectual property rights regime...

The use of TRIPS flexibilities by WTO members involves interpretation of the obligations under TRIPS which can be challenged under the WTO dispute settlement system. Mutually agreed solutions, panel or Appellate Body decisions adopted in such disputes can thus impact the scope of TRIPS...

IP provisions in FTAs may have implications on a wide range of public policy areas. A vast academic literature has addressed the "flexibilities" available under the TRIPS Agreement and the negative impact of FTAs in relation to access to medicines. For example, the Special Rapporteur on the...

In 2009, C.S. Gibson was suggesting that: "With this early coverage of intellectual property in BITs, it is perhaps surprising that there has yet to be a publicly reported decision concerning an IPR-centered investment dispute. Given the trajectory of the modern economy, however, in which...

The role patents play for innovation is not clear, but patenting activity has increased in the last decades. This article reviews the empirical evidence on traditional and novel roles of patents to assess their impacts on innovation in developing countries. It shows that patents are not likely...

The importance of IPR regimes for large firm innovation is well documented but less is known about their impact on typically less innovative self-employed entrepreneurship. The paper sets out to estimate the net effect of the various elements that comprise an IPR regime including the political...

So-called open source software (OSS) is marked by free access to the software and its source code. Copyright-based OSS licenses permit users to use, change, improve and redistribute the software, which is designed and developed in a public, collaborative manner. High quality OSS products like...

This paper aims at overcoming several shortcomings of previous empirical studies on the relationship between IPR protection and FDI. First, FDI is analyzed on a sectorally and regionally disaggregated level. Second, we address the proposition that stronger IPR protection raises not only the...

Of the diverse factors motivating technological change, one factor that has received increasing attention in the recent past has been the protection of intellectual property rights. Given fairly recent changes in the international policy ethos where a regime of stronger intellectual property...