Productivity growth, typically driven by technological progress, has been sluggish for more than 50 years. But a rules-based global trade system for intellectual property could go a long way toward reinvigorating it, by driving more specialization and cross-border cooperation among the world's inventors.
NEW YORK – If developed and developing countries’ national patent systems were integrated into the trade system, the result would be greater specialization among inventors and, with it, faster technological invention and productivity growth. Yet under current arrangements, World Trade Organization (WTO) member states do not honor foreign inventors’ claims to their own inventions. More than ever, the world needs a new framework of trade rules to facilitate the exchange of human ideas across borders.
NEW YORK – If developed and developing countries’ national patent systems were integrated into the trade system, the result would be greater specialization among inventors and, with it, faster technological invention and productivity growth. Yet under current arrangements, World Trade Organization (WTO) member states do not honor foreign inventors’ claims to their own inventions. More than ever, the world needs a new framework of trade rules to facilitate the exchange of human ideas across borders.