International Protection of Intellectual Property

International Protection of Intellectual Property

Gene M. Grossman, Princeton University and Edwin L.-C. Lai, City University of Hong Kong

Revised: June 2003


Abstract:

We study the incentives that governments have to protect intellectualproperty in a trading world economy. We consider a world economy withongoing innovation in two countries that differ in market size and in theircapacities for innovation. We associate the strength of IPR protection withthe duration of a country’s patents that are applied with national treatment.After describing the determination of national policies in a non-cooperativeregime of patent protection, we ask, Why are patents longer in the North?We also study international patent agreements by deriving the propertiesof an efficient global regime of patent protection and asking whether harmonizationof patent policies is necessary or sufficient for global efficiency.JEL Classification: O34, F13Keywords: patents, intellectual property, harmonization, TRIPs