Imitation v inspiration
Sep 12th 2002
From The Economist print edition
http://economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=1325360
How poor countries can avoid the wrongs of intellectual-property rights
“THE public will learn that patents are artificial
stimuli to improvident exertions; that they cheat people by promising what
they cannot perform; that they rarely give security to really good
inventions, and elevate into importance a number of trifles...no possible
good can ever come of a Patent Law, however admirably it may be framed.”
Hardly an argument you might expect The Economist
to endorse. And yet this passage appeared in our pages in 1851. In the
mid-19th century, The Economist believed that patents hindered rather
than helped growth, by restricting the free use of one man's ideas by
another. By all means let inventors be rewarded, we argued, but by trying
their luck in the open market. Patents, like protection, were an enemy of
free trade.
How times change. In today's “knowledge economy”,
patents seem to be central to western notions of prosperity and
international trade. Signing on to the global agreement on intellectual
property, called TRIPS, is now part and
parcel of membership of the World Trade Organisation.
Most of the world's people live in countries which
either do not have, or do not enforce, intellectual-property rights. Not for
much longer, however: TRIPS requires
even the least-developed countries to have some minimum protection in place
by 2006. Whether this is good for the poor is hotly debated. America, which
has the most extensive and expensive national-patenting system in the world,
preaches that patents help to foster growth in poor places, since they
stimulate domestic innovation, boost foreign investment and improve access
to new technologies.
Nonsense, retort many poor-country governments.
Western-style intellectual-property protection brings many costs and few
benefits. Patent systems are expensive to implement, draining scarce money
and trained manpower from other more pressing concerns. Patents hurt, rather
than help, domestic industries, which are often based more on copying than
on innovating. And in the process, western patent rules prevent poor people
from getting life-saving drugs, interfere with age-old farming practices and
allow foreign “pirates” to raid local biodiversity or traditional
handicrafts, without getting permission or paying compensation.
Into this fray now steps a study by an international
commission set up by the British government to examine how
intellectual-property rights can help or hinder developing countries (see
article). It questions the doctrine that patents are good for the poor.
There is little evidence to show that truly downtrodden places which
introduce robust intellectual-property protection reap any of the
much-touted benefits. Certainly, patents matter greatly to some industries,
such as pharmaceuticals. But putting in a rigorous patent system will not
make Angola a hotspot of biotechnology innovation any time soon; a licence
to drive is little use without a car.
Rich countries should remember this when they seek to
impose their intellectual-property regime on the rest of the world. It is
entirely reasonable for the world's poorest countries to argue that they
need until 2016, at least, to adopt and enforce patents on pharmaceuticals.
This stay of execution should, indeed, be extended to all forms of
intellectual property. Poor countries should also be wary of any provisions
in trade deals that try to impose stronger intellectual-property standards
than TRIPS requires, or of any moves
towards universal, one-size-fits-all patents in such controversial areas as
biotechnology. Rich countries should accept that considerations of how
intellectual-property rights affect poor countries are not just a concern of
overseas-aid agencies, but play a part in broader trade and economic
relations too.
That is not to reject intellectual-property rights in
the poor world altogether. Applied in the right way and at the right moment
in development, they offer opportunities not threats to poor people. Some
developing countries, such as India and China, whose industrial-scale
copying of other people's products alarms Western businesses, are
sufficiently advanced to support the sort of innovation that would benefit
from patents. They should bring their systems up to scratch, for the sake of
their own industry. Even the poorest countries can profit from well-designed
intellectual-property protection. Senegal, for example, has thousands of
musicians who would benefit from copyright enforcement.
Carefully worked-out policies for protecting
intellectual property will not solve developing countries' bigger problems,
such as inadequate health care, lousy schools and sheer poverty. But if they
are adapted to fit individual countries' circumstances, they can play a
helpful role in nurturing the domestic industries that lasting growth
requires. |