Government Officials, Experts Talk IP Protections, Multilateral Rulemaking
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement reflects the digital era in which we live, said Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Robert Holleyman Friday during the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global IP Summit on IP provisions in the recently released TPP text. He said the range of provisions in the agreement designed to enhance digital trade underlines that there are "truly 21st Century issues" at hand. Holleyman also said TPP promotes "speedy examination of patents" and requires participating countries to adopt a U.S.-style best practices, allowing a 12-month grace period during which time public disclosures of an invention will not be used to invalidate them.
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Holleyman said large-scale theft of American IP amounts to billions of dollars per year, and the problem continues to grow. He joined other presenters Friday in underlining the problematic effect of China's IP rules and procedures that many said are harmful to U.S. businesses and innovation. It's estimated that between 50 and 80 percent of IP theft both globally and in the U.S. can be traced to China, Holleyman said. "The rules that China adopts to promote IPR [intellectual property rights] protection therefore directly impact our economy, our innovators, and our workers," he said. Holleyman also said he has seen a contrast between China's stated policy intentions to protect and enforce IP rights, and the actual facts: "China continues to adopt measures to promote indigenous innovation that contradict its stated commitment to promote IP protection and enforcement."
Although China is not a party to the TPP negotiations, the agreement's IP rights and enforcement provisions "will offer a stronger and a better vision of IPR protection that is an important counterpoint to what we are seeing and an important raising of the standards throughout the region," Holleyman said.
When asked if the sun was setting on multilateral IP rulemaking, Stephen Ezell, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation vice president-global innovation policy, said he thinks it's "getting late in the night at least." The reality is "that too many in the global development community still view strong IP rights as a hindrance to, not an enabler of, developing country economic growth," he said. "If we are going to re-energize the global multilateral rule-making IP system, we are going to have to convincingly win the argument that it is actually in developing countries' own best interests to put in place strong IPR protections."
George York, U.S. Trade Representative deputy assistant-intellectual property and innovation, said he isn't sure the sun is setting on rulemaking, "but rather the dynamic has changed." York urged IP stakeholders to continue to be "critically involved" in global IP proceedings, rulemakings and agreements. "We need the stakeholders to be on the ground just as much as us," he said. "We just need to get the right champions in these markets talking."