Trademarks are words, signs, symbols, or combinations thereof that identify goods as manufactured by a particular person or a company, therefore allowing consumers to distinguish between goods originating in different sources. Trademarks belong to the wider family of intellectual property rights...

Economists have long recognized that richer countries trade more among themselves than with poorer economies due to a closer match of exporter supply structures and importer preferences. In the literature, the closeness of supply and demand has traditionally been determined by the quality of...

An important question in the design of bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) covering services is to what extent nonmembers benefit from the trade preferences that are negotiated among members. This question is resolved through services rules of origin. The restrictiveness of rules...

May 2000 - How will stronger patent rights in developing countries affect transnational corporations' behavior in and toward those countries? How will market structure and consumer welfare be affected by extending patent protection to products that could previously be freely imitated? Will...

Policy makers around the world recognize the potentially harmful consequences of trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy. Indeed, many countries have recently initiated policy reforms to strengthen the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR). Further, minimum standards of...

One of the most significant developments of the Uruguay Round of Trade Negotiations (1986-94) was the inclusion of intellectual property rights (IPRs) issues on the agenda of the multilateral trading system. The resulting Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is one of...