Trade deals can strengthen IP regulations: US Chamber report
IP concerns remain at the centre of the US’s ongoing trade dispute with China, but the recently signed preliminary trade deal has the potential to set an example and help strengthen IP regulations around the world, according to a US Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) report.
“The recent US-China Phase One agreement—if fully and faithfully implemented—promises to restore stability and improve the treatment of intellectual property in China,” said Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer, US Chamber of Commerce.
“This agreement will help protect consumers across the globe by strengthening protection and enforcement and help address unfair practices, such as coerced technology transfer,” he added.
David Hirschmann, president and CEO of the GIPC, an affiliate of the Chamber of Commerce and the report’s developer, said that IP "continues to be a massive economic driver for jobs and investment. In the US alone, IP supports more than $6 trillion in GDP, across 81 industries, and more than 45 million jobs.”
“To drive similar success at home, we encourage policymakers around the world to use this research as a roadmap to drive investment in cutting-edge sectors, as well as to access the world’s innovation and creative content,” he added in the report, “Art of the Possible”, which evaluates how 53 global economies approach IP issues, from patent and copyright policies to commercialisation of assets and ratification of international treaties.
The Phase One trade deal, signed in January 2020, includes reforms to better protect against trade secrets theft, pharmaceutical-related IP and patent infringement, and bad faith trademarks.
The agreement also includes provisions to strengthen judicial enforcement of IP and commitments to combat counterfeiting and piracy. The Phase Two agreement is expected to focus on IP reforms.
The US Chamber regularly produces an International IP Index, for economies that “aspire to become 21st century, knowledge-based economies through more effective intellectual property protection”, with US and European economies remaining at the top of the global IP rankings, while “many emerging markets also showed big improvements thanks to commitments to adopt pro-IP measures”.
“From the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement ( USMCA) to the US-China trade deal, the index illustrates that trade agreements remain critically important to global IP standards,” said Bradley. “We have a good foundation through USMCA and look to build on it.”
“There are also some things we shouldn’t replicate,” he added, and we “didn’t fully achieve the protection for IP that we hoped, particularly in new and emerging medicine.”
In addition to China’s IP reforms, both India and Brazil have recently passed a series of reforms and issued precedential court rules that strengthen enforcement, address administrative inefficiencies, and increase penalties for infringement, said the report.
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