Evolving Intellectual Property Protection in the World: Promises and Limitations

AutorMasaaki Kotabe
CargoHolds the Washburn Chair Professorship in International Business and Marketing at the Fox School of Business at Temple University
Páginas1-16
1
UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO
BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL
VOLUME 1 2010 NO. 1
EVOLVING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION IN THE
WORLD: PROMISES AND LIMITATIONS
ARTICLE
MASAAKI KOTABE*
I. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 2
II. Intellectual Property Pro tection .......................................................................... 4
A. Patents ............................................................................................................... 6
B. Copyrights ......................................................................................................... 9
C. Trademarks ....................................................................................................... 9
D. Trade Secrets .................................................................................................... 11
III. International Treaties f or Intellectual Property Protection .............................. 11
A. Paris Convention ............................................................................................. 12
B. Patent Cooperation Treaty. ............................................................................. 12
C. Patent Law Treaty ............................................................................................ 13
D. European Patent Conven tion ......................................................................... 13
E. Berne Convention ............................................................................................ 14
F. Further Developments ..................................................................................... 15
IV. Summary ............................................................................................................... 16
* Masaaki Kotabe holds the Washburn Chair Professorship in International Business and
Marketing at the Fox School of Business at Temple University. Prior to joining Temple University in
1998, he was Ambassador Edward Clark Centennial Endowed Fellow and Professor of Marketing and
International Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Kotabe served as the Vice President
of the Academy of International Business in 1997-98. In 1998, he was elected a Fellow of the
Academy of International Business for his significant contribution to international business research.
He has written more than 100 scholarly publications, including the following books, GLOBAL
SOURCING STRATEGY: R&D, MANUFACTURING, MARKETING INTERFACES (1992), ANTICOMPETITIVE
PRACTICES IN JAPAN (1996), GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT ( 2006), and GLOBAL MARKETING
MANAGEMENT, 5th ed. (2010).
2 U.P.R. BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL Vol. 1
I. INTRODUCTION
T NO OTHER TIME IN ECONOMIC HISTORY HAVE COUNTRIES BEEN MORE
economically interdepende nt than they are today. Despite the
current global recession since late 2008, most count ries in the 21st
century have not shunned globaliz ation and are likely to continue th eir
globalization trend. The globalization trend has been supported by the belief of
firms in the efficiency of global s upply chains. Even a firm that i s operating in
only one domestic market is not i mmune to the influence of economic activities
external to that market. T he net result of these facto rs has been the increased
interdependence of countr ies and economies, incr eased competitiveness, and
the concomitant need for f irms to keep a constant watch on the internati onal
competitive and technologi cal environment.
As the nature of value-adding activities in the world shifts more and more to
information creation, mani pulation, and analysi s, both developed and e merging
nations have started takin g an increased interest in international intellectua l
property protection measures. Imagine a farmer in the nineteenth century
headed into the twentieth century. The intrinsic va lue of food will not go aw ay
in the new century, but as food be comes cheaper and cheaper to produce, the
share of the economy devo ted to agriculture will shr ink (in the United States
agriculture contributes less than 3 percent t o the GDP) and so will the margi ns
for the farmer. It would be advisable to move into manufacturing, or at least
into food processing, to mai ntain margins.
An analogous situation fa ces a content maker f or information-related
products such as software, sheet music, movies, newspapers, magazines, and
education in the late-twentieth ce ntury headed into the twenty-first century.
Until recently, content has a lways been manifested physi cally first in people
who knew how to do things; then in books, s heet music, records, new spapers,
loose-leaf binders, and catalogs ; and most recently in ta pes, discs, and other
electronic media. At firs t, information could not be copied: it could only be re-
implemented or transferred. People could build new machines or de vices that
were copies of or impro vements on the original; people could tell each o ther
things and share wisdom o r techniques to act upon. (Reimplementation was
cumbersome and re-use did not take away from the original, but the process of
building a new implemen tation a new machine or a trained apprentice
took considerable time and physical resources.)
Later, with symbols, paper, and printing presses, people could copy
knowledge, and it could be di stributed in fixed media; performance s could be
transcribed and recreated from musical scores or scri pts. Machines could be
mass-produced. With such mechanica l and electronic media, intellectual value
could easily be reproduced, and the need (or demand from creators) to protect
intellectual property ar ose. New laws enable d owners and creators to control
the production and distribution of copies of their works. Although reproduction
A

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