Property Rights (property + right)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting

Kinds of Property Rights

  • intellectual property right
  • private property right

  • Terms modified by Property Rights

  • property right protection
  • property right theory

  • Selected Abstracts


    MUSLIM WOMEN AND PROPERTY RIGHTS

    ECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 2 2009
    Azhar Aslam
    This paper examines rights to property accorded to women in Islam under direct injunctions and compares it with the state of these rights in present Muslim societies. It argues that the correct application of law will not only materially improve the status of women in Muslim societies and guarantee them economic security, it will also bring economic prosperity to such societies directly. [source]


    THE IMPORTANCE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH: THE CASE OF RURAL CHINA, 1979,1987

    ECONOMIC PAPERS: A JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMICS AND POLICY, Issue 2 2006
    IAN WILLS
    This is an extended and slightly revised version of an article by Wills and Yang published in Policy, Vol. 9, No. J, Autumn 1993. The article was derived from a paper by Yang, Wang and Wills published in the China Economic Review in 1992. The idea for the empirical study, the analytical model and the procedure for quantifying changes in property rights came from Xiaokai Yang. The study illustrates his ability to apply inframarginal concepts to real problems. [source]


    SPECIAL INTEREST POLITICS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS: AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF STRENGTHENING PATENT PROTECTION IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

    ECONOMICS & POLITICS, Issue 2 2008
    ANGUS C. CHU
    Since the 1980s, the pharmaceutical industry has benefited substantially from a series of policy changes that have strengthened the patent protection for brand-name drugs as a result of the industry's political influence. This paper incorporates special interest politics into a quality-ladder model to analyze the policy-makers' tradeoff between the socially optimal patent length and campaign contributions. The welfare analysis suggests that the presence of a pharmaceutical lobby distorting patent protection is socially undesirable in a closed-economy setting but may improve social welfare in a multi-country setting, which features an additional efficiency tradeoff between monopolistic distortion and international free riding on innovations. [source]


    NATURAL RESOURCE EXPLOITATION UNDER COMMON PROPERTY RIGHTS

    NATURAL RESOURCE MODELING, Issue 1 2003
    MICHAEL R. CAPUTO
    ABSTRACT. Renewable natural resources such as ground-water, pastures and fisheries are often governed bycommon propertyrights in which members of a group jointlyown the exclusive use of the resource. We develop a formal model of a common propertycontract based on differential game theory and then use the model to examine (i) the incentives of individual users of the common resource; (ii) the resulting harvest and stock time paths; (iii) the local stabilityof the steady state; and (iv) the steadystate comparative statics. Moreover, we compare the qualitative properties of the common propertyregime to those generated under perfectlydefined private rights and open access. We show how common prop-ertyownership of natural resources can generate rent and be a second-best solution when private propertyrights are costly to establish. [source]


    DIVISIONS OF LABOUR, SPECIALIZATION AND THE ENFORCEMENT OF A SYSTEM OF PROPERTY RIGHTS: A GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM ANALYSIS

    PACIFIC ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2004
    Li Ke
    The model suggests that fiscal competition between states facilitates important circular effects, which propel improvements in economic welfare and promote economic growth. In particular, improvements in institutional efficiency expand the demand for transactions, which in turn increases the need for further third-party protection of property rights. We illustrate our results using the growth of the state system in Western Europe. [source]


    TRADE-RELATED ASPECTS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

    THE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 1 2001
    Huala ADOLF
    First page of article [source]


    Are Geographical Indications a Valid Property Right?

    DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 5 2009
    Challenges, Global Trends
    This article explores what is at stake in the international conflict on geographical indications (GIs), particularly for developing countries. It first examines how the WTO panel has obliged the European Union to open its registration system to third countries and how the ongoing negotiations on GIs seem to be reaching stalemate. Initiatives showing how GIs are a key political and trade issue are identified in Turkey, India, China, Colombia and Ethiopia. Trade negotiation agendas have to handle this new balance of power, in which the reputation accompanying a good may become common. [source]


    Property Right and Organizational Characteristics of Producer-owned Firms and Organizational Trust

    ANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2005
    by Harvey S. James Jr.
    Our results indicate trust is correlated with property right and organizational structures previously identified in the literature as significant for cooperative performance. We find that the norm of equality and the homogeneity of member interests are key correlates of organizational trust in producer-owned firms. We also find that some property right structures that improve organizational trust are counterproductive for member investment incentives. [source]


    The Failure of Popular Justice in Uganda: Local Councils and Women's Property Rights

    DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2001
    Lynn Khadiagala
    Advocates of alternative dispute resolution argue that informal, community-based institutions are better placed to provide inexpensive, expedient and culturally appropriate forms of justice. In 1988, the Ugandan government extended judicial capacity to local councils (LCs) on similar grounds. Drawing on attempts by women in southwestern Uganda to use the LCs to adjudicate property disputes, this article investigates why popular justice has failed to protect the customary property rights of women. The gap between theory and practice arises out of misconceptions of community. The tendency to ascribe a morality and autonomy to local spaces obscures the ability of elites to use informal institutions for purposes of social control. In the light of women's attempts to escape the ,rule of persons' and to seek out arbiters whom they associate with the ,rule of law', it can be argued that the utility of the state to ordinary Ugandans should be reconsidered. [source]


    Collective Action and Property Rights for Poverty Reduction: A Review of Methods and Approaches

    DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2009
    Esther Mwangi
    This article provides a review of literature on the relationship between poverty and the institutions of collective action and property rights, as outlined in the conceptual framework of Di Gregorio et al. (2008). Using the elements of the framework as a guide, it offers an overview of how researchers and practitioners identify and evaluate these concepts. The article emphasises the multidimensionality of poverty and the necessity of applying various approaches and tools to conceptualising and measuring it. In addition to highlighting the crucial role that institutions play in poverty reduction, it shows power relations and the political context to be of fundamental importance in poverty-related studies. [source]


    The Origins and Influence of Land Property Rights in Vietnam

    DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2008
    Denise Hare
    Vietnam's 1993 Land Law was intended not only to increase the security of farmers'usage rights to their land, but also to facilitate land transfers. Despite potential benefits, the actual issuance of land-use rights certificates to farmers (as specified by the law) proceeded rather slowly in some regions. This article seeks to identify factors that explain the emergence of this form of property right as well as to measure its effect on agricultural production. The results suggest that the certificate's direct contribution may be rather small in the absence of the appropriate supporting conditions and institutions. [source]


    Rights and Access to Plant Genetic Resources under India's New Law

    DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 4 2004
    Anitha Ramanna
    Recognition of ,Farmer's Rights' is an attempt by developing countries to evolve a counterclaim to breeders' Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) promoted under the TRIPs Agreement of the WTO. India is one of the first countries to have granted rights to both breeders and farmers under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, 2001. This multiple rights system aims to distribute rights equitably, but may pose the threat of an ,anticommons tragedy' i.e. too many parties independently possessing the right to exclude others from utilising a resource. If under-utilisation of plant genetic resources results, the Act will have negative consequences for sustaining crop productivity and for the welfare of the very farming communities it seeks to compensate. [source]


    Property Rights and Public Interests: A Wyoming Agricultural Lands Study

    GROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2002
    Katherine Inman
    Rocky Mountain states have experienced unprecedented growth as agricultural land is converted to residences. Preservation efforts meet with protest from private landholders claiming public efforts undermine private property rights. This paper explores the degree to which respondents think management of agricultural lands is a public versus a private matter. Data are from a Sublette County, Wyoming, mail survey. Results are relevant to many western counties having public lands and high growth rates. They suggest that landowners, wage earners, college graduates, and those who value the county's rural community lifestyle support public management strategies. Well-established residents and those with economic reasons for living in the county support private management strategies. [source]


    Cultural Districts, Property Rights and Sustainable Economic Growth

    INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2002
    Walter Santagata
    The purpose of this article is to analyse the economic properties as well as the institutions governing the start-up and evolution of cultural districts. The first part of the article reviews the relationships between culture, viewed as an idiosyncratic good, and the theory of industrial districts. The second part comprises a critical discussion of four models of cultural districts: the industrial cultural district (mainly based on positive externalities, localized culture and traditions in ,arts and crafts'); the institutional cultural district (chiefly relying on the assignment of property rights); the museums cultural district (based on network externalities and the search for optimal size); and the metropolitan cultural district (based on communication technologies, performing arts and electronic trade). The assignment of intellectual property rights to local idiosyncratic cultural goods seems to be the most significant way to differentiate among cultural districts. The final section discusses a possible convergence of all district models towards the institutional district, based on the creation of a system of property rights as a means to protect localized production. Cet article tente d'analyser les propriétés économiques et les institutions qui régissent la création et l'évolution de districts culturels. La première partie étudie les relations entre la culture , vue comme un bien idiosyncrasique , et la théorie des districts industriels. La deuxième partie est un débat critique sur quatre modèles de districts culturels: le district culturel industriel (basé essentiellement sur des externalités positives, des cultures et traditions artisanales locales), le district culturel institutionnel (s'appuyant principalement sur l'attribution de droits de propriété), le district culturel des musées (fondé sur des effets d'entraînement en réseau et la recherche d'une taille optimale), et le district culturel métropolitain (basé sur les technologies de communication, des représentations artistiques et le commerce électronique). L'attribution de droits de propriété intellectuelle sur des biens culturels idiosyncrasiques locaux semble être la meilleure manière de différencier les districts culturels. La dernière partie de l'article examine une convergence possible de tous les modèles de district vers le district institutionnel, en s'appuyant sur la création d'un système de droits de propriété comme moyen de protection d'une production locale. [source]


    Power, Property Rights and the Issue of Land Reform: A General Case Illustrated with Reference to Bangladesh

    JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 1-2 2004
    Mushtaq Husain Khan
    The argument for land reform is most persuasive when the proposed land reform promises not only to improve distribution but also to increase growth and efficiency. Such is the promise in the GKI advocacy of radical redistributive land reform. In this paper, first (a) the Griffin, Khan and Ickowitz (GKI) and (b) World Bank positions on land reform are compared, and their points of agreement and disagreement identified. Secondly, the political economy of Bangladesh is examined to evaluate the appropriateness of these two competing neoclassical approaches for understanding the constraints in the agrarian sector. Thirdly, it is argued that the anomalous evidence on land transactions and productivity in Bangladesh cannot be easily accommodated within purely economic models of markets in the way that the neoclassical approach attempts. Paradoxically, both the World Bank's focus on institutional reform and GKI's focus on radical land reform are derived from such attempts and both suffer from similar empirical and theoretical problems. There is a strong case for going back to Brenner-type political economy approaches for understanding the dynamism and constraints facing agrarian transitions. Such an approach puts the analysis of class and power at the centre stage of an analysis of structure and change in the agrarian economy, and focuses on the distribution of power that prevents primitive accumulation in some countries leading to a capitalist transformation. [source]


    Property Rights and Natural Resource Management in Developing Countries

    JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 2 2002
    Rasmus Heltberg
    This essay surveys the literature on property rights and natural resource management in developing countries. Focus is on policy relevant discussions concerning collective action, property regimes, local institutions for natural resource management, the evolution of individual property rights to land, land titling by government and poverty,environment linkages. The tendency to draw policy conclusions from simplistic analysis is criticised, and the need for more credible empirical research is highlighted. [source]


    Eminent Domain and the Psychology of Property Rights: Proposed Use, Subjective Attachment, and Taker Identity

    JOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 4 2008
    Janice Nadler
    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. City of New London, allowing governments to force the sale of private property to promote economic development, provoked bipartisan and widespread public outrage. Given that the decision in Kelo was rendered virtually inevitable by the Court's earlier public use decisions, what accounts for the dread and dismay that the decision provoked among ordinary citizens? We conducted two experiments that represent an early effort at addressing a few of the many possible causes underlying the Kelo backlash. Together, these studies suggest that the constitutional focus on public purpose in Kelo does not fully, or even principally, explain the public outrage that followed it. Our experiments suggest that subjective attachment to property looms far larger in determining the perceived justice of a taking. We have only begun to map the contours of this response, but these initial findings show promise in helping to build a more democratic model for the law and policies dealing with takings. [source]


    Water, Adaptation, and Property Rights on the Snake and Klamath Rivers,

    JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION, Issue 2 2007
    Richard A. Slaughter
    Abstract:, Water demand in a viable economy tends to be dynamic: it changes over time in response to growth, drought, and social policy. Institutional capacity to re-allocate water between users and uses under stress from multiple sources is a key concern. Climate change threatens to add to those stresses in snowmelt systems by changing the timing of runoff and possibly increasing the severity and duration of drought. This article examines Snake and Klamath River institutions for their ability to resolve conflict induced by demand growth, drought, and environmental constraints on water use. The study finds that private ownership of water rights has been a major positive factor in successful adaptation, by providing the basis for water marketing and by promoting the use of negotiation and markets rather than politics to resolve water conflict. [source]


    Modest Expectations: Gender and Property Rights in Urban Mexico

    LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 1 2010
    Ann VarleyArticle first published online: 31 MAR 2010
    This article examines gender and property in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the light of debates that oppose formal title to the social embeddedness of rights in customary law and assert that titling is bad for women. The article focuses on urban homes, private property, and civil law but finds that qualities regarded as characterizing customary property relations also shape popular understandings of property in urban Mexico. Discussion groups and social surveys in four low-income neighborhoods addressed two aspects of family law and property: whose name should appear on titles, and who should inherit the home. The results show that women, as wives, sisters, and daughters, have a secondary relationship to property. They also suggest that the opposition of individual title to socially embedded rights is a false dichotomy and that generalizing arguments about formalization and especially the negative gender implications of titling risks replicating the universalizing tendencies of Western property models. [source]


    On the Edge of the Law: Women's Property Rights and Dispute Resolution in Kisii, Kenya

    LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 1 2009
    Elin Henrysson
    Scholars have argued that economic efficiency requires a clear definition of the rights of ownership, contract, and transfer of land. Ambiguity in the definition or enforcement of any of these rights leads to an increase in transaction costs in the exchange and transfer of land as well as a residual uncertainty after any land contract. In Kenya, government efforts at establishing clearly defined property rights and adjudication mechanisms have been plagued by the existence of alternative processes for the adjudication of disputes. Customary dispute resolution has been praised as an inexpensive alternative to official judicial processes in a legally pluralistic environment. However, our research demonstrates that customary processes may also carry a monetary cost that puts them beyond the means of many citizens. This article compares the costs and processes of the formal and informal methods of property rights adjudication for women in the Kisii region of Kenya. The research results suggest that women have weak property rights overall, they have limited access to formal dispute resolution systems because of costs involved, and even the informal systems of conflict resolution are beyond the means of many citizens. [source]


    Defending Intellectual Property Rights in the BRIC Economies

    AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Issue 2 2006
    Robert C. Bird
    First page of article [source]


    Basic Needs, Property Rights and Degradation Of Commons

    PACIFIC ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2003
    Bharat R. Hazari
    A major problem in many developing countries is the degradation of commons. This degradation has occurred on account of the lack of fulfilment of the basic needs of the poor, free riding and ill,defined property rights. As these goods are essential for the survival of these people, they have to access these items from commons. This results in regular raids to common land for resources and also to private houses (for example, in New Delhi) which are not guarded for water. A variant of the agricultural household model is used to analyse the above problem. Several propositions are established and it is demonstrated that degradation can occur at both a low and high price of basic needs. This result has important policy implications as it demonstrates that land or common degradation cannot be solved by just using the price system. Properly defined property rights and provision of basic goods in kind may resolve the problem of degradation of commons. [source]


    Competition Policy and Property Rights,

    THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 544 2010
    John Vickers
    One of the most controversial questions in current competition policy is when, if ever, should competition law require a firm with market power to share its property, notably intellectual property, with its rivals? And if supply is required, on what terms? These questions are discussed with reference to recent law cases including the EC Microsoft judgment of 2007 and the US linkLine case of 2009. The analysis focuses on whether competition law and regulation are complements or substitutes and on incentives for investment and (sequential) innovation. [source]


    China,Intellectual Property Rights: Implications for the TRIPS-Plus Border Measures

    THE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 5 2010
    Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan
    One of the ground-breaking features of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is its part III on the enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights. In early 2009, the first WTO Dispute Settlement Panel Report primarily addressed obligations on IP enforcement. Here, the technical success of the US border measures claim comes with a crucial limitation: those Chinese measures that cover basically all of the commercially relevant activity are ab initio excluded from the panel's findings. Because they go beyond the minimum standards of TRIPS, the panel relied on one of the few TRIPS provisions that specify the relevance of TRIPS for additional "TRIPS-Plus" IP protection and enforcement. Given that such "TRIPS-Plus" measures are increasingly common in national laws and international treaties, it is time to take a closer look at how TRIPS addresses TRIPS-Plus IP protection. With a focus on border measures, I conclude that TRIPS contains not only minimum but also maximum standards or "ceilings" that impose limits on additional IP protection and enforcement. Such ceilings in TRIPS can function as limits for further extensions of IP protection and enforcement,as currently negotiated under a proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or relating to border measures against generic drugs in transit. [source]


    The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Flexibilities on Intellectual Property Enforcement: The World Trade Organization Panel Interpretation of China-Intellectual Property Enforcement of Criminal Measures and Its Implications

    THE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 5 2010
    Xuan Li
    Criminal procedure is one of the three major points in the China-Intellectual Property (IP) case brought about by the United States. A number of experts believed that United States failed on this point because of lack of sufficient evidence. However, the author is of the view that the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) text-based interpretation of IP enforcement flexibility served as the core of the panel decision. This article starts with the criminal thresholds of China's criminal laws, and focuses on analysing the interpretation by the panel on the scope of responsibility and its limitations as enshrined in article 61, which led to the conclusion that the essence of the dispute is how to interpret and determine "IP enforcement flexibility". On this basis, the article expounds the concept and content of the "IP enforcement flexibility" and highlights the implications of this concept on current international TRIPS-plus initiatives. Some implications are given on how the World Trade Organization members can take advantage of the enforcement flexibility to serve the needs of innovation and development in their own countries. [source]


    Unfettered Consumer Access to Affordable Therapies in the Post-TRIPS Era: A Dead-End Journey for Patients?

    THE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 3 2010
    India Case Studies, Kenya
    Increasing access to essential medicines has become an international priority, given the rapid spread of intractable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. It follows that the quests to improve the global quality of healthcare and achieve health equity present a challenge for many countries, especially those that have been hard hit by deadly pandemics and whose populations are also still without essential drugs. Consequently, many countries have stepped up efforts to remove the obstacles to the availability and affordability of essential medicines. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) contains flexibilities that can be used as tools for enhancing access to cheap medicines and for controlling drug pricing. However, these flexibilities are not necessarily a panacea and cannot singly solve the problem of limited access to essential medicines. Put differently, cheaper medicines cannot reach the poor without the infrastructure to deliver them. For this to become a reality, commitment on the part of the member countries to adopt comprehensive and cooperative measures to tackle the burdensome barriers that limit access to critical medicines is needed. It is only then that the flexibilities in TRIPS can be optimized and a real difference made in the lives of poor patients across the developing world. [source]


    Incentives for and Protection of Cultural Expression: Art, Trade and Geographical Indications

    THE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 2 2010
    Anselm Kamperman Sanders
    After the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Cultural Diversity, the interaction between the protection of traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) and geographical indicators (GIs) is an interesting one. The capacity of a geographical indication of origin to create a global market with local control over brand, quality and methods of production seems to make it immensely suitable for preservation of cultural diversity. Since the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights does not limit the potential causes of action for the unauthorized use of GIs, the tort of misappropriation may be applied in relation to TCEs. In order to reconcile intellectual property rights with non-Western belief systems, application of the tort of misappropriation, unjust enrichment and the remedy of restitution may make enforcement of GIs in relation to TCEs more palatable than other forms of protection. [source]


    Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and Access to Medication: Does Egypt Have Sufficient Safeguards Against Potential Public Health Implications of the Agreement

    THE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 1 2010
    Heba Wanis
    The implementation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) in Egypt raised concerns over public health implications, resulting from pharmaceutical patents, especially because the Egyptian pharmaceutical industry is heavily dependent on generic production. The current level of global competition in the pharmaceutical market, together with the lack of local pharmaceutical research, threaten the industry, and, as a result, access to affordable medication is expected to be impaired. Determinants of access to medicines are analysed. An epidemiological overview of the most prevalent diseases in Egypt has been done in light of the results of surveys about changes in medicine prices and availability, to speculate about potential limitations in access to medicines. Considering domestic pharmaceutical pricing and marketing regulations, which are mainly concerned with affordability, together with the flexibilities in the TRIPS Agreement, short-term solutions to potential access problems will be possible. Egypt has the necessary theoretical safeguards against negative implications of the TRIPS Agreement on access to treatment. However, this does not necessarily mean that these safeguards will be implemented in a way that will protect against the implications of patent protection on medicines in the long term. [source]


    The "Three-Step Test" and the Wider Public Interest: Towards a More Inclusive Interpretation

    THE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 6 2009
    Robin Wright
    Intellectual property law aims to protect the public interest in two often-contradictory ways: by granting exclusive rights to encourage creativity and by limiting those rights in certain situations for socially beneficial purposes. The Three-Step Test in international intellectual property treaties aims to ensure that limitations and exceptions to intellectual property rights do not inappropriately encroach upon the interests of rights holders. This article examines the interpretation of the Three-Step Test as included in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights for copyright and patents by two World Trade Organization dispute-resolution panels and by other commentators. It looks at how these interpretations have dealt with the public policy motivations underlying limitations and exceptions to exclusive rights, and considers the ways in which the public policy intentions that underlie decisions by national legislators to adopt the limitations and exceptions to intellectual property rights can be considered in each step of the test. The conclusion reached is that the Three-Step Test contains the potential to allow both aspects of the public interest to be considered as part of an inclusive interpretation. [source]


    (Re)implementing the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights to Foster Innovation

    THE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 5 2009
    Daniel J. Gervais
    This article considers the impact of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in developing countries. After an initial phase of "paper compliance" with TRIPS, followed by efforts to manage the welfare costs of its implementation, a number of developing countries are looking at ways to optimize the implementation or reimplementation of the agreement to foster domestic competitiveness and innovation. One part of the equation involves attracting technology-intensive foreign direct investment. Another involves enhancing local innovation potential. Surfing the wave of outsourcing, which increasingly targets higher knowledge functions, a number of developing countries are becoming globally competitive innovators and displacing the geographical centres of innovation, with substantial political and economic impacts. [source]