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Intellectual Property (intellectual + property)
Terms modified by Intellectual Property Selected AbstractsINDIA MUST PROTECT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTYECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 4 2009Roger Bate No abstract is available for this article. [source] Currents: Books in BriefGLOBAL BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL EXCELLENCE, Issue 3 2001LaRoi Lawton The Roots and Future of Management Theory Profit From the Core: Growth Strategy in an Era of Turbulence 90 Days to Launch: Internet Projects on Time and on Budget The Six Sigma Revolution: How General Electric and Others Turned Process into Profits In Good Company Evolve! Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow Lessons from the Heart of American Business: A Roadmap for Managers in the 21st Century The Passion Plan at Work: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Passion-Driven Organization The Inner Work of Leaders: Leadership as a Habit of Mind Corporate Sin: Leaderless Leadership and Dissonant Workers The HR Scorecard Place to Space: Migrating to Ebusiness Models Building the Integrated Company Protecting Your Company's Intellectual Property: A Practical Guide to Trademarks, Copyrights, Patents, & Trade Secrets Gaming the System: Stop Playing the Organizational Game [source] ,Intellectual Property in the Food Technology Industry: Protecting Your Innovation'INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, Issue 11 2009Stuart Warner No abstract is available for this article. [source] The Political Economy of AIDS Treatment: Intellectual Property and the Transformation of Generic SupplyINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2007Kenneth C. Shadlen This article examines the relationship between intellectual property (IP) and public health, with a focus on the extension of AIDS treatment in the developing world. While most of the literature on IP and health examines the conditions affecting poor countries' capacities to acquire essential medicines, I show the distinct,and more complicated,political economy of production and supply. IP regulations alter the structure of generic pharmaceutical sectors in the countries capable of supplying essential medicines, and changes in market structure affect actors' economic and political interests and capacities. These new constellations of interests and capacities have profound implications for the creation and maintenance of political coalitions in support of on-going drug supply. The result is that the global AIDS treatment campaign becomes marked by mismatches of interests and capacities: those actors capable of taking the economic, legal, and political steps necessary to increase the supply and availability of essential drugs have diminished interest in doing so, and those actors with an interest in expanding treatment may lack the capacities to address the problem of undersupply. By focusing centrally on actors' interests in and capacities for economic and political action, the article restores political economy to analysis of an issue-area that has been dominated by attention to international law. And by examining the fragility of the coalitions supporting the production and supply of generic drugs, the article points to the limits of transnational activist networks as enduring agents of change. [source] Intellectual Property in the Context of e-ScienceJOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 2 2007Dan L. Burk E-science promises to allow globally-distributed collaboration and access to scientific research via computer networks, but e-science development is already encountering difficulty over the intellectual property rights associated with data and networked collaborative activity. The proprietary nature of intellectual property is generally problematic in the practice of science, but such difficulties are likely to be exacerbated in the context of e-science collaboration where the development and use of intellectual resources will likely be distributed among many researchers in a variety of physical locations, often spanning national boundaries. While a potential solution to such problems may reside in the mechanism of "open source" licenses, the organizational structure of scientific research may not map cleanly onto the open source model. Consequently, a firm understanding of not only the technical structure but of the social and communicative structure of e-science will be necessary in order to adapt licensing solutions to the practice of e-science. [source] Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens CreativityTHE JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE, Issue 3 2004William S. Walker First page of article [source] Intellectual Property, Architecture, and the Management of Technological Transitions: Evidence from Microsoft CorporationTHE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2009Alan MacCormack Many studies highlight the challenges facing incumbent firms in responding effectively to major technological transitions. Though some authors argue that these challenges can be overcome by firms possessing what have been called dynamic capabilities, little work has described in detail the critical resources that these capabilities leverage or the processes through which these resources accumulate and evolve. This paper explores these issues through an in-depth exploratory case study of one firm that has demonstrated consistently strong performance in an industry that is highly dynamic and uncertain. The focus for the present study is Microsoft, the leading firm in the software industry. The focus on Microsoft is motivated by providing evidence that the firm's product performance has been consistently strong over a period of time in which there have been several major technological transitions,one indicator that a firm possesses dynamic capabilities. This argument is supported by showing that Microsoft's performance when developing new products in response to one of these transitions,the growth of the World Wide Web,was superior to a sample of both incumbents and new entrants. Qualitative data are presented on the roots of Microsoft's dynamic capabilities, focusing on the way that the firm develops, stores, and evolves its intellectual property. Specifically, Microsoft codifies knowledge in the form of software "components," which can be leveraged across multiple product lines over time and accessed by firms developing complementary products. The present paper argues that the process of componentization, the component "libraries" that result, the architectural frameworks that define how these components interact, and the processes through which these components are evolved to address environmental changes represent critical resources that enable the firm to respond to major technological transitions. These arguments are illustrated by describing Microsoft's response to two major technological transitions. [source] Reforms Towards Intellectual Property-Based Economic Development in MalaysiaTHE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 4 2009Lim Heng Gee It has been constantly asserted that the intellectual property (IP) system is an effective way to enhance creativity, technological innovations, trade and competitiveness. Others, however, maintain that the IP system may not necessarily be the most effective and appropriate way to fuel the economy. This article investigates the role that IP plays in the economic development of Malaysia from 1986 to 2006. In particular, the article examines the impact of IP-based reforms, which includes not only the IP laws but other IP-related policies with a view to determine how these policies contribute to economic development in Malaysia. For this purpose, the article starts with a brief summary of important IP-related policies. Then the article proceeds with an analysis of trends in IP applications such as patent, trademark and industrial design application. Using data such as numbers of IP filing and grant, this article suggests ways in which the reforms in IP-related policies could have supported growth or could have directly influenced trends in IP application in Malaysia. The article further examines the growth of IP applications in four industrial sectors in Malaysia, i.e. automobiles, information technology, pharmaceuticals, and information and communications technology. [source] Local Knowledge as Trapped Knowledge: Intellectual Property, Culture, Power and PoliticsTHE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 1 2008Chidi Oguamanam Discourses of local knowledge and categories of rights claimants thereto are embroiled in complex conceptual and analytical morass. The conceptual quandary around local knowledge is diversionary from the historically rooted hierarchies of culture, power and politics that have subjugated it. Claims to local knowledge are challenged from several dimensions, including arguments from cultural cosmopolitanism, intellectual property rights and aspects of liberal democratic principles. An interesting new site for this power play is the emergent bioprospecting framework of access and benefit sharing. In this context, sophisticated external intermediaries, who have asymmetrical power relationships with custodians of local knowledge, now constitute a new threat to the genuine aspirations of indigenous and local communities. Recently, local knowledge claims are conflated with propertization of culture raising concerns over the asphyxiation of the public domain. Making the claims or claimants to local knowledge the scapegoats of our troubled public domain undermines the source of the problem. In a way, the current anemic state of our public domain can be blamed on unwholesome expansion of intellectual property and unidirectional appropriation of local knowledge by external interests. The reality of cultural cosmopolitanism requires an intellectual property order that is responsive to the contributions of local knowledge. [source] The Role of Intellectual Property in the Global Challenge for ImmunizationTHE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 4 2006Tarcísio Hardman Reis The contemporary scenario of international immunization is focused on the implementation of vaccination programs in developing countries, which demonstrates obvious similarities with the policy "access to medicines" under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. However, the debate on immunization involves distinct elements and presents different concerns and obstacles, which will be presented throughout this study. Three introductory remarks need to be made in order to place intellectual property (IP) as a core problem of global immunization. The first is that immunization is a world priority. The second is that the global immunization challenge faces the hurdle of the poverty gap. Finally, IP plays a controversial role in the implementation of immunization programs in less developed countries. [source] Singapore's Emerging Knowledge Economy: Role of Intellectual Property and its Possible Implications for Singaporean SocietyTHE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 3 2006Robin Ramcharan This article seeks to take an exploratory and critical look at the role of intellectual property (IP) in the development of Singapore. IP protection has become an important factor in the move to a knowledge-based economy (KBE), in which information is a prized asset. In order to preserve its traditional role as a regional trading entrepôt, its economy has evolved from an initial concentration on heavy industry-based manufacturing to manufacturing in knowledge-intensive products (electronics, chemicals and engineering), and the provision of financial and banking services. IP is now, arguably, a critical factor in the latest attempts by the Singaporean leadership to remain relevant to the regional and global economy. Faced with numerous competitors and cheaper labor markets, an impressive drive has been launched towards the enhancement of knowledge-intensive industries for which IP protection is vital. These include the creative industries strategy (copyright industries) and the provision of biomedical services (pharmaceutical, medical devices, biotechnology and healthcare services), the "fourth pillar" of Singapore's manufacturing sector, in addition to electronics, chemicals and engineering. Singapore seeks a competitive edge in this niche, for which IP protection seems vital. Patents are particularly relevant to the fourth pillar. This article will examine the following: (1) the place of IP historically in its economic development; (2) its role in various aspects of various strategies in its current economic development plans,the creative industries strategy, the intelligent island strategy and the fourth pillar strategy; and (3) critical IP issues for Singapore's economy. It does so with several key questions in mind. (1) Could the drive to an IP intensive knowledge economy generate social dislocations? (2) Which segments of Singaporean society stand to gain or lose in the move to an intensively knowledge-based economy? (3) Can the IP system contribute to softening the blow in any such dislocations? This article seeks to stimulate research into the social and economic impact of IP in Singapore's developmental process, an area thus far understudied. [source] Intertwining Regimes: Trade, Intellectual Property and Regulatory Requirements for PharmaceuticalsTHE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 1 2005Karin Timmermans First page of article [source] The Wto, Intellectual Property and AidsTHE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 4 2004Case Studies from Brazil, South Africa First page of article [source] Reconfiguring Intellectual Property for the Information AgeTHE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 3 2004Towards Information Property? First page of article [source] Intellectual Property and Technology Due Diligence in Business Transactions (Part 2)THE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 4 2001Sheldon Burshtein First page of article [source] LEGISLATION AND REPORTS: Copyright and Parody: Taking Backward the Gowers Review?THE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 5 2010Article first published online: 17 AUG 2010, Ronan Deazley In 2006 the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property made a series of recommendations for reforming the intellectual property regime to better serve the interests of both consumers and industry. Among the proposed recommendations was that an exception for parody be introduced within the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. In January 2008 the Intellectual Property Office (the IPO) launched the first part of a two-stage consultation process on exceptions to copyright. As part of that consultation process, the IPO proposed a ,fair dealing style exception' for parody, and sought views on whether a new exception should be introduced as well as what form it might take. In December 2009 the IPO launched the second stage of this consultation process. The second consultation document rejected the case for a new parody exception. This article considers the place of parody within the copyright regime and the objections levelled against the introduction of an exception set out within the IPO's second consultation document. It invites the IPO to reconsider its decision not to recommend the introduction of a specific exception for parody within the UK. [source] Intellectual Property and Biological KnowledgeBULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (ELECTRONIC), Issue 2 2004Gwen L. Williams No abstract is available for this article. [source] Patents and Pharmaceutical R&D: Consolidating Private,Public Partnership Approach to Global Public Health CrisesTHE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 4 2010Chidi Oguamanam Intellectual property (IP) is a reward and incentive market-driven mechanism for fostering innovation and creativity. The underlying, but disputed, assumption to this logic is that without IP, the wheel of innovation and inventiveness may grind to a halt or spin at a lower and unhelpful pace. This conventional justification of IP enjoys, perhaps, greater empirical credibility with the patent regime than with other regimes. Despite the inconclusive role of patents as a stimulant for research and development (R&D), special exception is given to patent's positive impact on innovation and inventiveness in the pharmaceutical sector. This article focuses on that sector and links the palpable disconnect between the current pharmaceutical R&D agenda and global public health crises, especially access to drugs for needy populations, to a flaw in the reward and incentive theory of the patent system. It proposes a creative access model to the benefits of pharmaceutical research by pointing in the direction of a global treaty to empower and institutionalize private,public partnerships in health care provisions. Such a regime would restore balance in the global IP system that presently undermines the public-regarding considerations in IP jurisprudence. [source] Symmetric-key block cipher for image and text cryptography,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF IMAGING SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 3 2005José J. Amador Abstract Public-key cryptography has been widely accepted as the method in which data is encrypted, using algorithms such as the widely known and popularly used RSA algorithm. However, management of the public-key and its storage is an on-going issue. To avoid these problems the symmetric-key approach can be taken, where there is only one key and it must be kept secret. Presented in this paper is a new cipher based on symmetric-key cryptography, called the NASA/Kennedy Cipher (N/KC), and further designed as a block cipher using 128-bit blocks. The minimum key size is set at 128 bits with a maximum allowable of 2048 bits, modulus 2. The main focus of this work is encryption of image data for the purpose of protecting intellectual properties. However, empirical results are presented on N/KC's ability of encrypting and decrypting text data in the form of vectors and documents as well. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 15, 178,188, 2005 [source] CODE IS SPEECH: Legal Tinkering, Expertise, and Protest among Free and Open Source Software DevelopersCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2009GABRIELLA COLEMAN ABSTRACT In this essay, I examine the channels through which Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) developers reconfigure central tenets of the liberal tradition,and the meanings of both freedom and speech,to defend against efforts to constrain their productive autonomy. I demonstrate how F/OSS developers contest and specify the meaning of liberal freedom,especially free speech,through the development of legal tools and discourses within the context of the F/OSS project. I highlight how developers concurrently tinker with technology and the law using similar skills, which transform and consolidate ethical precepts among developers. I contrast this legal pedagogy with more extraordinary legal battles over intellectual property, speech, and software. I concentrate on the arrests of two programmers, Jon Johansen and Dmitry Sklyarov, and on the protests they provoked, which unfolded between 1999 and 2003. These events are analytically significant because they dramatized and thus made visible tacit social processes. They publicized the challenge that F/OSS represents to the dominant regime of intellectual property (and clarified the democratic stakes involved) and also stabilized a rival liberal legal regime intimately connecting source code to speech. [source] Managing Design for Market Advantage: Protecting Both Form and Function of Innovative DesignsDESIGN MANAGEMENT REVIEW, Issue 1 2004Joshua Cohen To reap the rewards of creative designs, it is critical to maintain ownership and control of those designs. Joshua Cohen summarizes the spectrum of legal options for protecting products, packaging, and related intellectual property. He highlights potential conflicts among these options, suggests how they can be used to complement one another, and proposes strategies to make design protection an integral aspect of designing and marketing. [source] ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL MEDICINES: A HOBBESIAN SOCIAL CONTRACT APPROACHDEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 2 2005RICHARD E. ASHCROFT ABSTRACT Medicines that are vital for the saving and preserving of life in conditions of public health emergency or endemic serious disease are known as essential medicines. In many developing world settings such medicines may be unavailable, or unaffordably expensive for the majority of those in need of them. Furthermore, for many serious diseases (such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis) these essential medicines are protected by patents that permit the patent-holder to operate a monopoly on their manufacture and supply, and to price these medicines well above marginal cost. Recent international legal doctrine has placed great stress on the need to globalise intellectual property rights protections, and on the rights of intellectual property rights holders to have their property rights enforced. Although international intellectual property rights law does permit compulsory licensing of protected inventions in the interests of public health, the use of this right by sovereign states has proved highly controversial. In this paper I give an argument in support of states' sovereign right to expropriate private intellectual property in conditions of public health emergency. This argument turns on a social contract argument for the legitimacy of states. The argument shows, further, that under some circumstances states are not merely permitted compulsory to license inventions, but are actually obliged to do so, on pain of failure of their legitimacy as sovereign states. The argument draws freely on a loose interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's arguments in his Leviathan, and on an analogy between his state of War and the situation of public health disasters. [source] CONSENT, COMMODIFICATION AND BENEFIT-SHARING IN GENETIC RESEARCH1DEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 2 2004DONNA DICKENSON ABSTRACT The global value of the biotechnology industry is now estimated at 17 billion dollars, with over 1300 firms involved as of the year 2000.2 It has been said that ,What we are witnessing is nothing less than a new kind of gold rush, and the territory is the body.' As in previous gold rushes, prospectors are flooding into unexplored and ,wide open' territories from all over the world, with possible ramifications for exploitation of Third World populations. These territories are also the Wild West of bioethics insofar as the law has very little hold on them: existing medical and patent law, such as the Moore and Chakrabarty cases, exert little control over powerful economic interests in both the United States and Europe. In the absence of a unified and consistent law on property in the body, the focus is increasingly on refining the consent approach to rights in human tissue and the human genome, with sensitive and promising developments from the Human Genetics Commission and the Department for International Development consultation on intellectual property. These developments incorporate the views of vulnerable genetic communities such as Native Americans or some Third World populations, and should be welcomed because they recognise the power imbalance between such groups and First World researchers or firms. However, they also highlight the continued tension about what is really wrong with commodifying human tissue or the human genome. Where's the injustice, and can it be solved by a more sophisticated consent procedure? [source] Issues Regarding the Composition of Capital FlowsDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 1 2001John Williamson This article considers the composition of capital flows to developing countries. After developing a taxonomy of the alternative possible forms, it presents a brief summary of the main facts and stylised facts of relevance to the topic. It argues that accessing FDI, portfolio equity, or long-term loans, as opposed to short-term loans (e.g. from banks), is well worth the additional cost, because of advantages in terms of risk-sharing, access to intellectual property, impact on investment, and lesser vulnerability to capital flow reversal. It proceeds to discuss the extent to which authorities control appropriate policy levers and concludes with a brief look at the composition of capital outflows from developing countries. [source] Novel therapeutics with enhanced biological activity generated by the strategic introduction of silicon isosteres into known drug scaffoldsDRUG DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH, Issue 4 2007Stephen Gately Abstract The strategic replacement of carbon with silicon within biologically prevalidated drug scaffolds can generate focused libraries of pharmaceutically relevant agents with novel, durable and marketable intellectual property. This approach can be cost-effective and of lower developmental risk because known drugs have recognized pharmacology and toxicity profiles, proven safety in humans, and established manufacturing and formulation methods. The change in shape, charge, and lipophilicity that can result from the addition of silicon can favorably alter the biological activity and toxicology of the parent drug. Silicon-containing derivatives of indomethacin are COX-2 selective, suggesting they will not be associated with the classical toxicities associated with nonselective inhibition of the cyclooxygenases. The silicon-indomethacin derivatives also demonstrated superior anti-cancer activity at clinically achievable concentrations when tested in vitro against a human pancreatic cancer cell line, MiaPaCa-2, and a panel of 14 human multiple myeloma cell lines. Bioorganosilicon chemistry represents an attractive approach for emerging biopharmaceutical organizations seeking to rapidly develop a portfolio of novel pharmacological agents that have the potential for enhanced therapeutic and pharmacological benefit. Drug Dev Res 68:156,163, 2007. ©2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] State Policies, Enterprise Dynamism, and Innovation System in Shanghai, ChinaGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2007WEIPING WU ABSTRACT Today rapidly growing economies depend more on the creation, acquisition, distribution, and use of knowledge. As such, strategies for enhancing research and innovation capabilities have come to occupy a more important position in many developing nations, including China. Already the leading production center, and often seen as China's economic locomotive, Shanghai is striving aggressively to retain its national preeminence and has launched concerted efforts to increase local innovative output. The primary purpose of this paper is to understand how state-led efforts have fared in promoting technology innovation. By situating the city in the national and global context, the paper shows that Shanghai has gained a substantial lead in developing an innovation environment with extensive global linkages and leading research institutions. Recent efforts in building up the research and innovation capacity of the enterprise sector have begun to show progress. Although firms are enthusiastic about its future as an innovation center, Shanghai continues to face challenges of inadequate protection of intellectual property, lack of venture capital investment, and the tightening supply of highly qualified knowledge workers. [source] How States Augment the Capabilities of Technology,Pioneering FirmsGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2002Maryann P. Feldman State governments offer a variety of programs to assist technology intensive entrepreneurial firms yet there is a limited understanding of how firms use these programs. This paper provides a framework for categorizing state technology programs and uses detailed case studies to examine how these programs augment firms' capabilities. It is concluded that firms made extensive use of state programs that provide access to university intellectual property and research facilities. In addition, firms participated in programs that provided incentives for faculty to conduct joint research with industry. Finally, state venture capital programs, though small relative to federal R&D grants or venture capital, appear to nurture firms' development. [source] THE IMPACT OF THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ON THE STUDY OF HISTORYHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 1 2009ANTOON DE BAETS ABSTRACT There is perhaps no text with a broader impact on our lives than the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It is strange, therefore, that historians have paid so little attention to the UDHR. I argue that its potential impact on the study of history is profound. After asking whether the UDHR contains a general view of history, I address the consequences of the UDHR for the rights and duties of historians, and explain how it deals with their subjects of study. I demonstrate that the UDHR is a direct source of five important rights for historians: the rights to free expression and information, to meet and found associations, to intellectual property, to academic freedom, and to silence. It is also an indirect source of three duties for historians: the duties to produce expert knowledge about the past, to disseminate it, and to teach about it. I discuss the limits to, and conflicts among, these rights and duties. The UDHR also has an impact on historians' subjects of study: I argue that the UDHR applies to the living but not to the dead, and that, consequently, it is a compass for studying recent rather than remote historical injustice. Nevertheless, and although it is itself silent about historians' core duties to find and tell the truth, the UDHR firmly supports an emerging imprescriptible right to the truth, which in crucial respects is nothing less than a right to history. If the UDHR is a "Magna Carta of all men everywhere," it surely is one for all historians. [source] University-to-industry knowledge transfer: literature review and unanswered questionsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT REVIEWS, Issue 4 2001Ajay K. Agrawal This paper reviews the economic literature concerning university-to-industry knowledge transfer. Papers on this topic are divided into four categories. Research in the ,firm characteristics' category focuses directly on company issues, such as internal organization, resource allocation, and partnerships. In contrast, research in the ,university characteristics' stream pays little attention to the firms that commercialize inventions, but rather focuses on issues relating to the university, such as licensing strategies, incentives for professors to patent, and policies such as taking equity in return for intellectual property. The ,geography in terms of localized spillovers' stream of research considers the spatial relationship between firms and universities relative to performance in terms of knowledge transfer success. Finally, the ,channels of knowledge transfer, literature examines the relative importance of various transfer pathways between universities and firms, such as publications, patents, and consulting. Each of these research streams is discussed and key papers are described highlighting important methodologies and results. Finally, an outline of topics requiring further research in each of the four categories is offered. [source] The Political Economy of AIDS Treatment: Intellectual Property and the Transformation of Generic SupplyINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2007Kenneth C. Shadlen This article examines the relationship between intellectual property (IP) and public health, with a focus on the extension of AIDS treatment in the developing world. While most of the literature on IP and health examines the conditions affecting poor countries' capacities to acquire essential medicines, I show the distinct,and more complicated,political economy of production and supply. IP regulations alter the structure of generic pharmaceutical sectors in the countries capable of supplying essential medicines, and changes in market structure affect actors' economic and political interests and capacities. These new constellations of interests and capacities have profound implications for the creation and maintenance of political coalitions in support of on-going drug supply. The result is that the global AIDS treatment campaign becomes marked by mismatches of interests and capacities: those actors capable of taking the economic, legal, and political steps necessary to increase the supply and availability of essential drugs have diminished interest in doing so, and those actors with an interest in expanding treatment may lack the capacities to address the problem of undersupply. By focusing centrally on actors' interests in and capacities for economic and political action, the article restores political economy to analysis of an issue-area that has been dominated by attention to international law. And by examining the fragility of the coalitions supporting the production and supply of generic drugs, the article points to the limits of transnational activist networks as enduring agents of change. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||