Comments for A New Journey Among the Global Intellectual Property Issues

Vandergeynst Alexis  
Enforcement of IPR on the internet INTRODUCTION Nowadays, due to the expansionary growth of the internet, more and more intellectual content is available online. The internet has made access to information and communication far easier. Everyone with a computer and an internet connection web can access vast amounts of information. This means, on one hand, that there are new opportunities for intellectual…
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Enforcement of IPR on the internet

INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, due to the expansionary growth of the internet, more and more intellectual content is available online. The internet has made access to information and communication far easier. Everyone with a computer and an internet connection web can access vast amounts of information.
This means, on one hand, that there are new opportunities for intellectual rightsholders to distribute their creations but, on the other hand, it also means that theses rightsholders tend to loose control over the exploitation of their rights.
Therefore, with the emergence of the Internet, intellectual property law and policy making have been challenged on many fronts.
For example, the simple notion of territoriality on a structure of clear physical boundaries is inconsistent with the internet. With clear boundaries, the State, as the creator and enforcer of intellectual property laws is clearly delineated.
The enforcement of intellectual property on the internet has become an important issue in our society. Most of our daily occupations revolve around the World Wide Web and it has become part of our way of living (we shop on the internet, we manage our bank account and share photos on this media).
This is why we have decided to analyze the different features of this issue.

Chapter I. Is intellectual property in its actual form able to support the innovative wave in the internet?
I. Existing legislation
There are some international treaties that deal with IP rights and the internet. One can give the example of the provision of the WTC about the so-called “Digital Agenda”. It covers the following issues: the rights applicable to the storage and transmission of works in digital systems, the limitations on and exceptions to rights in a digital environment, technological measures of protection and rights management information.
Some advancements have also been made by the European Union concerning IP and the internet. For example, directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights aims to create a level-playing field for applying IP rights. It also aims to harmonize EU countries’ legislation, thus ensuring that intellectual property enjoys an equivalent level of protection in the internal market.

II. Internet governance:
During the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2005, internet governance was described as «the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision making procedures, and programs that shape the evolution and use ».
This meant that all issues concerning the internet (including those of public policy) should evolve and be led in cooperation and collaboration with all stakeholders.
(Article 68 of the Tunis Agenda states « […] we also recognize the need for development of public policy by governments in consultation with all stakeholders of the Internet »)

Chapter II. Possible enforcement on the internet

I. Teach users about IP rights?
The internet is a place knowing constant evolution. When rights holders and authorities find a way to limit the infringement of IP rights committed, others will find new ways to distribute or infringe legislation protecting those rights. Thus an emphasis is to be placed on education of the users on those rights
Several propositions have been made by different actors, be it the European Commission or other IP related institutions, to create a special platform where users could legally access the content protected by IP rights. By setting what is legal and what is not, people will have a better view of what they can do on the internet without violating someone’s rights.

II. How to sue an user that violated an IP right?

The second issue, which directly concern the enforcement of IP rights, is about suing the one infringing IP rights on the internet. Because internet knows no geopolitical barriers, offenders are from anywhere in the world, where intellectual rights might be not be as protected as in other countries. Furthermore, the fact that the web is essentially a decentralized place makes it harder to identify the infringer. This brings us to the issue of determining which court has a jurisdiction to hear the complaints. Hence, the problem lies in the lack of a harmonized body of laws. Efforts should be made in drafting a special legislative protection of IP rights which will only be applicable on the internet. Such legislative document would be entirely dedicated to the internet and take into account all of its characteristics. Such issue might reveal itself of great importance in term of judicial security and will help rightsholders to know what their actual rights are and what they can do to protect them.

Another problem consist in the fact that, even if intermediaries, such has networks’ owner, have the obligation to delete any reported website committing an infringement against an IP right, they are not obliged to monitor their network in order to chase website committing such infringement. So, every years, millions of complains are filled and succeed at bringing down illegal website, but these website just have to reappear using another name in order to continue their infringement. Even if the content is as identical as the precedent website, rightsholders will have to launch another complain in order for the same website, with a different name, to be removed. We may ask ourselves, why not automatically strike down website which present an identical content as another who has been strike down? Even if the idea seem sweet and very time saving, it would be ignoring the principle of non bis in idem. So it seem to us that is it of utmost importance because it suck a humongous amount of energy and money in law suit and for almost nothing.

III. The internet and our private life.

But even if we have to greatly increase IP rights enforcement on the internet, it must not be in a way that will harm our right to privacy and our freedom of expression and our access to information. Several articles were also pointing that, too much monitoring and enforcement might, at the end of the day, be harmful to the creativity of people. Also, by monitoring too much in order to detect illegal content, we might come to a point where we will invade one’s privacy. So we need enough measures in order to actually protect intellectual creation, but we must keep in mind the other face of the problem, that we will be limiting people liberties of information and creation.

IV. Conclusion
As often, history has shown us that with any improvement comes backfires that need to deal with. Internet has revolutionized our lives in many ways but it need to be still tamed. That is why, for us daily users, the enforcement of IP rights on the internet is one of the most important issue of our time related to IP right because as we move toward a more fairly and just world, we should do the same concerning the internet which is a world that we have created.

Essay made by Meunier Adelice, Moller Hanna, Poucet Antoine, Yüksel Erdem, Rhalib Mehdi and Vandergheynst Alexis

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Charlotte Neyrinck, Amaury Cousin, Nicolas Bernard, Clémentine Witmeur, Maud Lesaffre  
INTRODUCTION The 21th century brought new innovations in large areas of the industry, technology and even artistic field. Thus, the existing rights aren’t able to solve the new issues arising with those innovations. In fact, we are currently facing issues regarding the lack of uniformity and modernization of intellectual property rights. I. 1ST ISSUE: LACK OF HARMONIZATION THAT IN FEW CASES LEADS…
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INTRODUCTION

The 21th century brought new innovations in large areas of the industry, technology and even artistic field. Thus, the existing rights aren’t able to solve the new issues arising with those innovations. In fact, we are currently facing issues regarding the lack of uniformity and modernization of intellectual property rights.

I. 1ST ISSUE: LACK OF HARMONIZATION THAT IN FEW CASES LEADS TO “FORUM SHOPPING”

We can notice that each state has its own legal order, own rules and jurisdictions. Thus, this fragmentation leads to a lack of uniformity and protection at the international and even at the national level. In fact, we don’t have a right that is common for the different rights (copyright, trademark, patent, design…): it creates a complex and ambiguous situation for the users. At first, intellectual property rights were only used for a technological purpose in order to protect innovations. However, it became a true political and economic instrument that is widely used by several actors (even if the access to those right isn’t equal due to their complexity).

In fact, each government wants to protect its own interest, and thus isn’t willing to create an harmonized and equal legislation, because it would no longer permits abuses and dominant position. For instance, the Marrakesh treaty is an illustration of the state reluctance towards uniformity. States fear the loss of their sovereignty. Nevertheless, in the opinion of some legal experts (David Hammerstein, for example), it’s a baseless excuse used to hide “non-justifiable interests”.

Regarding the economic aspect, there is first of all a conflictual relation between competition law and intellectual property law. For example, NGOs are criticizing intellectual property law, because of the patent on medicines that enables poor countries to have access to important medicines (pharmaceutical firms can’t create generic medicines, because they don’t have access to the scientific formula that is protected by patents). We are facing a true moral issue: should we continue to protect those inventions, or this protection is harmful for a large part of the population (especially the poor one)? At the mean time, this protection is a true incentive for innovation, because industrials want to make sure their investment will be protected and financially granted.

In addition to this moral issue, there is also a conflict and ambiguous relation with competition law: in fact IPs are an incentive for innovation, but at the mean time it unables the “knowledge sharing”. With the trade secret, competitors can’t have access to the needed technical information and this is a barrier for innovation. In order to solve this issue, we need to find a balance between both interests.

Because there is no efficient international legislation (Intellectual property rights are only deal on a national level), economic actors are taking advantages of countries with a legislation that is less strict and cover a lower number of situations. This situation is called “forum shopping” and is an illustration of the fact that the North is sometimes taking advantage and abusing from the South and their resources.

Indeed, Southern countries are facing less protection than the Northern one. In order to recover from this in the area of the natural environment 193 adopted The Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD). With this convention, there is the sovereignty of the member states over genetic resources found within their boundaries. Since the adoption of the convention, some progresses have been made to codify and make clearer how the principles of access and benefit sharing are to be realized.The achievement of these progresses is the Nagoya protocol of 2010. One proposal related to intellectual property is that patent applicants using genetic resources should state which are the countries providing such resources or from which they originate and should provide evidence that they have permission to use the resources. Nevertheless, business is against that proposal because it will not help to achieve at the fair and equitable benefit sharing of CBD and Nagoya protocol, and patent applicants would not have obtain the information requested.

II. 2ND ISSUE: ARCHAIC RIGHTS THAT DON’T FIT NEW REALITIES

This second issue is actually leading to two sub-issues: on the one hand existing rights aren’t efficient and modern enough to offer a proper protection. On the other hand, new areas of life and the industry need to be protected (blog, domain names, piracy…).

The first issue can be illustrated with the “libraries and archive problem”: existing rights aren’t fitting nowadays realities. The protection offered by some of the existing rights is way too “strict” for the “archive case”, and on the other hand, other intellectual property tools aren’t protective enough. This leads to a situation were we have inaccessible documents and this arms innovation, because students and researchers aren’t able to access important source of information. At the opposite, in a situation were the used tool isn’t efficient, this important and cultural heritage that represent archives will be lost forever because of this like of preservation. In our point of view, there is an urgent need to create new intellectual property tools that would be adaptable to each situation in order to offer the best solution. Nevertheless, librarians aren’t able to make this change because the current procedure is way too complex… It needs to be more accessible to people that are dealing with this everyday (are on the field)

We are currently noticing that with new inventions and technologies, there is an increasing number of users and information in circulation. We are confronting a lack of control and protection. Moreover, attempts of legislation are often a failure because of the opponents (mainly users) and the cost of those measures. Intellectual property rights are too old and not efficient enough to solve this problem. They are too slow to fill the gap, that’s why we should adapt the legislation.

To put into a nutshell, we should reform and modernize the system. Create an automatic and uniform procedure. In addition, special international jurisdictions should be created. This will ensure that every one can have access to an efficient, impartial (not govern by state interest) and equitable protection (even poorer countries and smaller companies). Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that the economic and moral issues related to intellectual property rights are also closely linked with Human Rights violation. In our opinion, Human Rights and the protection of freedom are more important matters than the protection of technologies and innovations. We should maybe use those legal tools to ensure the protection of Human Rights and find a balance with the protection of the different freedoms (information, goods …).

charlotte.neyrinck@etudiant.usaintlouis.be; witmeurclementine@hotmail.com; maudlesaffre@yahoo.fr; nico.bernard@hotmail.com; amau-cousin@hotmail.com

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Laura Pinilla - Martin Lens -Nicolas Gilbert  
The most important global IP related issue Internet is everywhere, easily reachable, and it offers plenty of possibilities. It is a formidable tool for rightsholders, creating amazing distribution possibilities. On the other hand, it has become clear that we need to prevent infringements related or derived from its use. Indeed, what makes the strength of internet (accessibility, ease and speed of…
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The most important global IP related issue

Internet is everywhere, easily reachable, and it offers plenty of possibilities. It is a formidable tool for rightsholders, creating amazing distribution possibilities. On the other hand, it has become clear that we need to prevent infringements related or derived from its use. Indeed, what makes the strength of internet (accessibility, ease and speed of communication, reproduction and transmission of data) also makes it difficult for rightsholders to control the unauthorized exploitation of their rights. According to us, the protection of intellectual property rights in the “high-risk digital environment” seems to be one of the most important global IP related issue.

As young adult, we have grown up connected. Internet seems to be “ours” and we spend hours watching movies, downloading music, using pictures…regardless of their provenance. However, behind our screen, we never feel like thieves. Should we? Yes. The real problem, we believe, is that the consumer is not educated enough to understand the wrong he is doing. Someone who steals a disc in a music store is perceived far way worse than someone who listens to illegally downloaded music. “Users of the internet have been conditioned to believe that everything is free, as information, graphics, lyrics, source codes, and ideas are openly available for all to see and use”. This way of thinking must evolve through education (school, media…). We all have to understand that the protection accorded to intellectual property tends to “promote public availability of works that would otherwise not be shared with the public at large without a guarantee of the ability to protect them, and receive a return on the investment, time, effort and skill required for their production and distribution”.

Why is the issue of IP protection on internet so important for our society? In a certain way, internet is the sworn enemy of IP. Today, you need two “clic” on your keyboard to steal the work of someone else. But if we do not pay attention to IP, we may weaken the most beautiful way of communication ever created. People will be afraid to share their works, ideas and plans online. Government will have to take more and more measure to protect IP and the consumers will have a restricted access to free contents, less freedom online… Both rightsholders and consumers take the risk to lose something irreplaceable. By protecting IP, we protect internet.

Beside education, governments adopt policies to foster innovation and creativity on the Internet that include the protection of IPR. Both national and international instruments have been created to provide protection against infringement. For example, “the WCT and the WPPT (the “Internet treaties”) address the challenges posed by today’s digital technologies, in particular the dissemination of protected material over digital networks such as the Internet.

This leads to the second main issue we worked on: how to provide better regulations and effective enforcement of IPR over the internet while respecting the consumer privacy? Should the government have access to the contents of my computer on behalf of the protection of IP? Once again, it is about finding the right balance between the protections of different fundamental rights. It is a main issue to find a right equilibrium. What happens in case of interaction between IPR and data protection regulations when disclosure of personal data is requested for enforcement purpose? “Legislators and policy makers have always had to grapple with striking a balance between the rights of creators and the interests of users in the context of such new technological developments”.

Sources :
http://www.interparty.org/intellectual-property-rights-on-the-internet.html
http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/sites/default/files/intellectual_property_internet.pdf

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Alain Strowel

Good. I am a bit surprised to read: “However, behind our screen, we never feel like thieves. Should we? Yes.”
Let’s further compare “copying” and “stealing”.

BEGAJ MUHAMET  
First of all, what is intellectual property ? When a person creates something ( writings, music, paintings, creation of technology, creation of mind), in general he has an exclusive right over the use of his creation, the creator may obtain a recognition and benefits. These rights are called intellectual property rights. After reading the text « Intellectual Property Roadmap »…
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First of all, what is intellectual property ? When a person creates something ( writings, music, paintings, creation of technology, creation of mind), in general he has an exclusive right over the use of his creation, the creator may obtain a recognition and benefits. These rights are called intellectual property rights.

After reading the text « Intellectual Property Roadmap » I can say that all intellectual property rights are important because several areas of a society are concerned ( industrial, cinematographic, literary..) but we are going to focus on the link between intellectual property and innovation which is the most important.

Why this choice ?
First, innovation is important because if we want to progress we have to create new things, new technologies, try something new. In fact, creativity is important for enriching our lives, for the human well-being but also for the environement well-being.
The welfare of humanity is at stake so it is important for creators and innovators to have a legal protection framework and to be rewarded for their ingenuity. It encourages further innovation.

Secondly, innovation stimulates economic growth. Indeed, it is very important for the economy of a country, if we protect innovators we will have a society suitable to creativity and invention and the innovation is a pillar of the econimic growth. We can not deny reality, intellectual property rights allow the economic development of country Therefore, governement policies have to encourage innovation and incentivize people to invest, develop and create.

In this way, there will be new industries and new jobs will be created wich leads to improving our quality of life and enhances our well-being. A state that goes well is a state in which the rate of unemployment is low and in which there is no inflation. That’s why people has to invest for sustainable outcomes.
Moreover a good economic situation allows an agreement with other states.

In regards to biological diversity and climate change, effort has to come from people. However, in another look, intellectual property rights can play an important role because the problem of climate change may push some people to create new things, imagine new green technologies and find green solutions. Each creation has to have a protection by the state which guarantees to its author to gain the benefits.

Once again we see how much intellectual property rights are for the well-being of humanity. Information and security must prevail. Government policies must subsidize programs of research and development. It is also important to specify that the role of competition is major because consumers can make choices betwen several compagnies.

In conclusion we must encourage people to invest for supporting the economy of the country because there is a link between the interests of creators and the public interest. We have to search a balance between that.

Our environment has to be an environment in which benefits of creativity and invention enhances the live of everyone. We do not forget the importance of competition without that it would be a arbitrary society where the monopoly belongs to someone and people could not imagine other creation and consumers would be not free in their choices. Competition must prevail.

The social purpose of innovation is to have sustainable results of investment and continue the development of new technologies. This could be done thanks to government policies which incentive people to invest or subsidize research activities.

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Dhib Manel  
Generally, every Intellectual Property Rights deserve to be protected. When you create something on your own, you have the right to a protection. You put efforts and all your energy on it and it would be unfair not being granted any protection… It’s about ownership and in a world like ours, it is normal to prevent ourselves from people desperate…
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Generally, every Intellectual Property Rights deserve to be protected. When you create something on your own, you have the right to a protection. You put efforts and all your energy on it and it would be unfair not being granted any protection… It’s about ownership and in a world like ours, it is normal to prevent ourselves from people desperate for money and glory and who would be ready to do anything just to steal others creations. Every creation deserves to be acknowledged and specially attributed to its creator.
Also, in the end, every creation is a sort of contribution to the society and helps it to evolve.
But according to me, the focus must be specially put on the patents. The patent consist for the government to grant protection to the “author” of a new invention in exchange of the informations on this invention. Those kind of creations must be particularly protected, according to me, because, those are revolutionary for the society. The inventions help us in a great way to have less and less difficulties in our life and to evolve faster and faster. Unfortunately, it’s worsening the environment, specifically the climate so an invention can be seen like a poisoned chalice…
The patents have many advantages:
First, they are a way to push the inventor to reveal to the world what it is about to become revolutionary for the society… The value we focus on here, is the generosity and the solidarity…
Then, the inventor by sharing his invention has everything to win by asking for a patent. It grants him a protection, and he will not be powerless if someone tries to steal it or to take all the merits for it. The patent can be seen as an exchange of good practices because it protects the inventor and the inventor accepts to share it with the society and to contribute to make the society evolve. But that’s not all because the inventor wins respect and a recognition of his invention… Also a reward for it.

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Alain Strowel

Thanks for your response. Not sure you can write: “every Intellectual Property Rights deserve to be protected”. Is the IPR not the way to protect? Why to refer to the subject matter of the rights as the IPRs?

Ludmilla Biebuyck, Sarah Bourgois, Marguerite-Marie le Hodey, Géraldine van der Straeten, Clémence Rouma  
Biebuyck Ludmilla Bourgois Sarah Le Hodey Marguerite-Marie Rouma Clémence Van der Straeten Géraldine Innovation as important Intellectual Property Right issue Innovation appears to be the most important IP-related issue according to us. Indeed, as students and future generation of workers, we are aware that the technological advancement and innovation are the base of development and improvement. It is thus essential to promote them as much…
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Biebuyck Ludmilla
Bourgois Sarah
Le Hodey Marguerite-Marie
Rouma Clémence
Van der Straeten Géraldine

Innovation as important Intellectual Property Right issue

Innovation appears to be the most important IP-related issue according to us. Indeed, as students and future generation of workers, we are aware that the technological advancement and innovation are the base of development and improvement. It is thus essential to promote them as much as possible in order to provide effective solutions to worldwide challenges such as education, health, economy, and environment. As innovation affects such important areas, we’ve decided to analyse how IP rights can foster technological advancement.

The first argument in favour of IP is obviously economic. In fact, an economy without innovation implies slow growth and no positive evolution. The impact would be negative for the state (slow growth), consumers (lack of useful new products), investors (no fast growing innovative companies and slower growing existing one), workers (less jobs), etc. An ineffective system of IP protection favours industries copying other people or companies ideas. The competition arising from copying companies obviously creates an unfair competition. 
China is an example of a country, which still has insufficient or ineffective laws to protect intellectual property. Copying is at least tolerated or only softly punished. This explains the international pressure coming from large countries (e.g. the US) or organizations (e.g. the World Trade Organization on China to improve its legal framework and, most important, enforce it).

Secondly, following the same idea and as mentioned in the ICC roadmap, an emergence of the concept “open innovation” has been noticed. This approach has been adopted mainly to respond to the growing technological complexity, globalization or the massive development of communications. Indeed, if companies want to stay in the race, collaboration is inevitable. New product development means the ability of pulling together knowledge and know-how from multiple countries and disciplines. As we can imagine, companies will be required to collaborate with other actors, including their competitors. This is why a strong, clear and predictable IPR system is essential. It enhances within the collaboration and makes it effective. Companies are naturally afraid of free-riding and misappropriation. With strong IPRs, they are able to control the resources that will be shared and as a result, they can effectively share their know-how without loosing its control.

Thirdly, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are known to have the potential to drive improvement in technological progress. However, they often lack of capital and have binding resources. As they need partners with more resources and commercialization experience, PRs can be a solution to attract new partners, funders or investors. On the one hand, SMEs can deal with partners without being afraid of misappropriation and on the other hand, IPRs signal the values of the innovation on the market and guarantee that it is new and valuable.

Due to the globalization of technology and skill and the technical improvement, the flow of critical technologies and skills has considerably expanded, both within the developed world and between the developed and developing economies.
The rapid development of emerging economies endangered IPR protection in these countries.
Furthermore, because stakes involved are huge and growing, IPR has gained importance both commercially and politically.
For example, IPR violations cause job and revenue losses in rich countries. Concerning counterfeiting, according to the FBI, 5-7 percent of world trade is in counterfeit goods, worth about $500 billion.
According to the few in favour of a stronger protection of IPR in developing countries, it would promote innovation and attract foreign direct investment, while critics counter that it will end in an unfair transfer of wealth from the poorest countries to the wealthiest ones.
Indeed, developing countries, the ultimate consumers of technologies, negotiate from a position of relative weakness.
According to critics, countries have stronger incentives to protect IPR once they have industries and companies to protect. But the path from imitation to innovation has not yet been proven in today’s developing countries.

According to WTO, developing countries see technology transfers as « part of the bargain in which they have agreed to protect intellectual property rights » through the TRIPS Agreement.
One of the purposes of protecting IP is to promote innovation and technology transfer, which the least-developed countries need.
Therefore, according to the TRIPS Agreement’s provisions (article 66.2), developed countries’ governments are required to provide incentives for their companies to transfer technology.
By contributing to the promotion of technological innovation, IP-system will lead to social and economic welfare and to a balance of rights and obligations, which bear a global impact on the functioning of any society.
Various decisions under the TRIPS have raised the question of technology transfer and innovation and implemented the Article 66.2. Also negotiators have been discussing the link between technology transfer and the TRIPS Agreement.
With regards to all of these arguments, one cannot deny the importance of Intellectual Property Rights in the development of new technologies. The issues evolving around innovation are crucial for every countries, as a result, developed countries as well as emerging ones must bare in mind the importance of IPR regulations. However, the right way to protect and promote IPR is still controversial.

Sources:

https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/techtransfer_e.htm

http://www.asiabusinesscouncil.org/docs/IntellectualPropertyRights.pdf

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/Innovation.pdf

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Alain Strowel

There exists a link between innovation and IP but it is definitely complex. Thanks for those thoughts on the geopolitics of IP.

Lorena, Edouard, Santiago and Guillaume  
Students: Lorena Weyckmans, Edouard Malcourant, Santiago Morales Pacheco and Guillaume Brisbois The ICC roadmap points out an Intellectual Property Right (IPR) issue that we believe to be major in our society: the competition issue. It seems only natural and logical that areas like competition law (called antitrust in U.S.), that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct…
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Students: Lorena Weyckmans, Edouard Malcourant, Santiago Morales Pacheco and Guillaume Brisbois

The ICC roadmap points out an Intellectual Property Right (IPR) issue that we believe to be major in our society: the competition issue. It seems only natural and logical that areas like competition law (called antitrust in U.S.), that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies, and IP law which is the property of an individual or a firm on its own intellectual creation establishing therefore a monopoly. Law makers are thus facing a long-term trade-off between the property right and market competition as IPR can prevent competition and establish monopoly. We have seen that an international agreement called TRIPS took measures for WTO members allowing them to control anti-competitive practices based on IPR. Many international organizations like WTO have set up groups to study such practices but the major activity has been at national or EU level.

The “anti-competitivity” of IP can be seen in three distinct ways. First of all, the owner of an IP can abuse his dominant as Martin Shkreli, a pharmaceuticals CEO, did by raising the HIV medication price by 5,000%. This was a huge media drama, we believe U.S. should start considering applying a standstill effect as it is a pity research made marvelous advances to treat AIDS and we are going backwards in the access to medical treatments for the sake of a property right. Also, a licensor – the owner of the IP – has the possibility to impose restrictive terms on his licensee – competitors willing to sell his IP – to secure inappropriate reward for his IP (this is called “tying”) like by setting a minimum price. We could illustrate this with the case of Microsoft imposing the use of Internet Explorer when buying Windows 98 which was condemned for illegal tying. Finally, the “anti-competitivity” of IP can be seen through competitor’s behavior depending on the certainty and the “punitivuty” of the law protecting the patent, meaning the level of protection of patents may make competitors respect it or challenge it. This was illustrated when Samsung decided to challenge several Apple patents to produce their Galaxy phones, they had much more benefits to make producing them anyway, challenging the law and paying “only” $120 millions of dollars of damages to Apple.
About these three ways of expression of the competition issue, the United States and the European Commission have adopted very different reactions and positions. While U.S. authorities showed themselves to be flexible and relaxed by considering that intellectual property rights only rarely create monopolies in the antitrust sense, refusing to share your property not being a violation of the law; the European Commission has long promoted the compulsory licensing of IPR in special market situations. Therefore they condemned Microsoft for not releasing technical information to block innovation by competitors and threatened to attack the pharmaceutical industry for using “defensive patents”, meaning changing minor thing in the IP to benefits from a new patent, a practice that discourages relevant innovative efforts.

Also, while U.S. adopted a “rule of reason” to analyze the balance between the pro-competitive benefits and the anti-competitive effects therefore making permissible tying and setting a minimum price as it could be a solution to the free-rider problem. The European Commission granted block exemptions to specified classes of agreements like research, development or technology transfer and issued guidelines for the residual agreements. This system of regulation has shown to be ineffective as large companies have no direct use of it because of its uncertainty and restrictions barring it. The EU showed to be less generous than US by considering that no conceivable circumstances of tying or setting a minimum price could satisfy the conditions necessary for it to be lawful.
About the level of protection of patents, a new Act came into force in U.S. to improve the relevant weaknesses in US patent law (notably by reducing uncertainty on validity compared with the former and very outrageous “first-to-invent” law and also by improving the opportunities for third-party attack on patents).

The recent legislative evolutions in both U.S. and EU show that neither of the two “systems” are effective or better than the other and there is still a lot to achieve. Improvement is needed but the choice of authorities in the competition-IP trade-off clearly depends on each society’s culture and the level of attachment they have to property. Authorities seem to start realizing too much IP protection prevents competition and shaken the economic equilibrium by creating monopolies while favoring competition slows down private investment in research.

Using term of economy is the only way to describe the issue between IPR and competition: trade-off, choice, equilibrium, competitor’s behavior. This explains why we will never achieve completely both of them and if we do achieve completely one of them it would be at the expense of the other. Our world society is conditioned by economy which is the reason why the choice authorities make in the trade-off IPR-competition will influence everyone’s routine. We may not all be creators of innovative computers or revolutionary medicines but we are all influenced by the accessibility of technology, medical treatments or cars. The disputes or cartels made by giants change our lives whether we want it or not.
This issue between commerce and property raises ethical questions about the necessity of competition for fair business but also the relativity of an individual’s property. But also and more concretely the access to medicines or treatments that might be blocked by patents. We must relativize how firms like Nivea hire and pay people to make research for this new Q10 molecule in their products protected by a patent that in the end is going to pollute our running water making our government paying to put antibiotics in it. It is a vicious circle and the societal impact of the run, not after innovation, but after money has to be regulated by law.

Of course some firms do have an exemplary behavior like the Swiss-firm Lifestraw that invented a straw able to filter water for drinking. The item is distributed for free or at low prices to NGOs to give them away in less-developed countries or to handle humanitarian crisis while developed countries have to pay a high price to obtain it. This right to discrimination on the market due to the IP on Lifestraw is perceived as a smart way to handle IP, but again this is a monopoly.

NGOs often complain about this IP protection on medication that could be sold at lower prices to facilitate the access to medicines in developing countries. The pharmaceutical world is known and unpopular for the intellectual properties it generates. Some movements point out how vaccines are overestimated and used to make profits, we believe we should relativize this demonization of vaccines while keeping in mind that some vaccines like flu vaccines that are different every year are clearly generating more financial profits than societal profits.

We could ask ourselves what would be the right thing to do if a firm develops a GMO kind of wheat that may grow in harsh conditions. Where does their property rights stop? Is it their proper right to refuse to distribute it to less-developed African countries that desperately need food in some crisis?

The limit between smart thinking and the conspiracy theory is thin as a society that is dictated by economy and profits paradoxically demonizes patents and monopolies. The debate on this issue could go on a long time as examples are flourishing every day.

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Aouad Adam, Alagoz Berfin, Caci Sonia, Caseiro Dieguez Maité, Goffin Mélissa, Jebbari Yasmina, Kadi Nora  
Intellectual property Law We chose the issue: " the link between climate change and Intellectual property Rights". After doing some research, we found out that the evolution of technologies had an impact on climate change. These technologies created in the 18th and 19th centuries were admittedly efficient but they appeared to be very polluting (e.g. : steam engine and internal combustion…
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Intellectual property Law

We chose the issue: ” the link between climate change and Intellectual property Rights”. After doing some research, we found out that the evolution of technologies had an impact on climate change. These technologies created in the 18th and 19th centuries were admittedly efficient but they appeared to be very polluting (e.g. : steam engine and internal combustion engine). Indeed, the gas emission caused by these inventions increased global warming.

Today, the climate change issue concerns the entire society and the challenge is to find quick solutions. This is why Intellectual Property Rights intervened to regulate gas emission by granting patents. A patent is ” an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides a new way of doing something offers a new technical solution to a problem. To get a patent, technical information about the invention must be disclosed to the public in a patent application”. The treaty WIPO and the national and regional laws are the legal frameworks of patents.

In this issue, according to the WIPO (World International Property Organization) website, there are two important purposes : the first one is to encourage investments in the creation of environmental friendly technologies and the second one is to promote the global diffusion of these technologies. Furthermore, governments and international organizations state the framework in order to decrease the climate change and the private sector applies their decisions.

For instance, WIPO is a specialized institution of the United Nations. This institution ensures that the Intellectual Property system enables the creation and diffusion of ways to reduce gas emission. Another example is the UNFCCC (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). This is an international environmental forum where we can discuss and negotiate global solutions to climate change.

The green technology needs more investments from the private sector and that is why patents are useful in order to encourage it. The system of patents also constitutes the most complete source of public information over the latest technologies. It helps to develop new technologies, which is necessary in the climate area.

A relevant example related to the link between intellectual property rights and climate change is solar panels, which don’t require combustion and don’t emit greenhouse gases. Indeed, solar panels allow the reduction of gas emissions and if it was even more widely used, we would notice a big change. When we realized the usefulness of solar panels in the area of energy, a type of protection had to be chosen. It appeared that the patent was the best solution. Nevertheless, technical mechanisms are not subject to patents, so it enables other industries to also develop solar panels.

The link between intellectual property rights and climate change is not obvious at first. But as we just saw, both are closely linked. Global warming is a very important and daily dealt issue. We are all affected by it and for that reason, it is important to give more attention to all its aspects.

As we were looking for information about patents, we found out that there are already a lot of countries involved in this issue. For example, WIPO has already 184 members. Nevertheless, we think that it would be even more efficient if there were more international treaties that are immediately effective and that oblige countries to be more environmental friendly. In addition, the countries should be more supervised on the matter.

Finally, we also think that some changes must be made. Firstly, the relation between multinational, privates and public sector must be organized in a better way to improve the mechanism to take new decisions on the matter. Secondly, even if rules exist, multinationals still have too much power in economic terms. Consequently, intellectual property law loses its effectiveness in regards to struggle against global warming.

As a conclusion, we learnt a lot about this topic thanks to this work. Definitively, Global warming is probably the biggest challenge of this 21st century and Intellectual property law is closely linked to climate change issue.

Aouad Adam, Alagoz Berfin, Caci Sonia, Caseiro Dieguez Maité, Goffin Mélissa, Jebbari Yasmina, Kadi Nora

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Jure Kralj  
JUSTIFICATION OF THE PERSONALLY PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND INNOVATION First, I wish to express how profoundly ill-informed I consider myself to be at this point in time, concerning the substantial aspect of this topic, basing my personal point of view exclusively on my comprehension of the ICC intellectual property roadmap 2012. I have chosen innovation as…
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JUSTIFICATION OF THE PERSONALLY PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND INNOVATION
First, I wish to express how profoundly ill-informed I consider myself to be at this point in time, concerning the substantial aspect of this topic, basing my personal point of view exclusively on my comprehension of the ICC intellectual property roadmap 2012.

I have chosen innovation as the most important, in my point of view, of the five presented aspects of interaction between intellectual property and other policy areas. I believe innovation is something that transcends this division, or rather, is englobed by other options, such as environmental protection or sustainable economic development, being an integral element of both.
Since time immemorial, innovation presents itself as one of the fundamental traits of human existence- from the invention of the wheel to the development of the computer on which I’m typing this text, innovation has allowed for exponential growth of our knowledge and the improvement of the human condition. In my view, it is precisely in the exponential character of it’s contribution to human development, that innovation takes on its’ full force. Let’s try and imagine, for a second, that the invention of the wheel had been the object of rigorous IPR protection, requiring licencing for any application other than by its’ inventor. As absurd as the idea might seem, it isn’t difficult to imagine that in such a situation, the invention of at least partially derived ideas, such as the horse carriage, the tire and all the way to the modern automobile, would have been rendered significantly more difficult. I say this to show that, in my view, the true value of an invention doesn’t necessarily reside in the invented object itself, but rather in the platform the object provides for further development and innovation.
On the other hand, the comparison of the modern IPR situation with the invention of the wheel seems grossly inaccurate if not deceptive. In a world of increasingly complex technology, taking innovation a step further often entails extremely high R&D costs, currently supported in their vast majority by the private sector. Paradoxically, the conscience of the importance of such innovation for public welfare might lead to policies limiting or restricting the access of that same public to the use of these innovations, in an attempt to ensure the incentive for the private sector for continued investment in research and development. I fear such a reasoning might however lack scrupule, especially when the IPR in question touch some of the more sensitive questions presented by our modern society. To illustrate, pharmaceutical companies like to refer to the costs of R&D as justification of the sometimes exorbitant prices of medication they supply. This often leads to extremely difficult situations, where personal wealth determines an individuals’ right to treatment. Perhaps, in sensitive areas of application such as medicine, a government imposed price top-up system, taking into consideration the invested capital and a reasonable amount of profit spread over the period of patent protection before prolongation is required should be considered. This, as opposed to the general philosophy of loosening regulation in the shape of tax incentives and “regulation favouring investment and trade”, which despite its’ obvious pitfalls, still appears to be the way to go when it comes to building local innovative capacity.

Having participated at several events on this topic, mostly organized by the European Young Innovators’ Forum, reccuring questions seemed to pop up at every one of them. These ranged from difficulties with obtaining patent recognition and protection in different jurisdictions and the costs inherent to such activity (apparently it can take as much as three years and legal fees sometimes close to 50000 EUR), to innovation being inhibited in its’ transatlantic perspective by relatively strict regulation (currently, it appears there is no possibility for EU based users/companies to pursue US based companies before US courts, however H.E. A. Gardner has indicated this would be part of Safe Harbor 2.0.).
If 50,000 EUR of legal fees doesn’t seem like an exagerrated sum of money for big, international corporations, it is important to remind ourselves that some of the most active segments of the economy that invest in innovation are start-ups. Granted, their innovation isn’t likely to reside in the realm of pharmacological means or other high-cost sectors, however their sheer number and the innovative spirit often possessed by these entrepreneurs make them an innovative force to be reckoned with. It would appear that when it comes to protecting intellectual property, the first problem for a start-upper will present itself when he attempts a pitch to obtain venture capital. As start-ups are often based on little more than an idea (which itself cannot be subject to IP protection), presenting that idea to potential investors invariably involves revealing it in its’ entirety. This was one of the fundamental questions we attempted to address at the Unconvention 2015, with experts from law firms such as Jag Shaw Baker (London and New York based), Commissionner Gunther Oettinger, H.E. Anthony Gardner, Benjamin Rooney and others. It became apparent that the only viable way for a start-upper to ensure security of the idea was a non-disclosure agreement, which investors are highly unlikely to sign. Thankfully, trust is, despite evidence to the contrary, still an important part of such interaction, which means investors are unlikely to steal ideas, in an effort to protect their image. Legally, however, this doesn’t appear as satisfactory protection, especially in an economic environment where the creation of jobs is largely based on supporting and subsidizing entrepreneurs to create their own employment, and later provide it to others as well.

All this goes to show that this is indeed a pertinent topic to discuss, one I find to be the most pertinent of all of the options considered in the text.

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Elisabeth Bousmar  
In my opinion, one of the major Intellectual Property -related issues that has an important societal impact concerns climate change. Nowadays, there are many international instruments whose aim is to reduce the level of emissions projected into the environment such as the Kyoto Protocol or the Cancun agreements, that set the average level of emissions permitted by States parties to…
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In my opinion, one of the major Intellectual Property -related issues that has an important societal impact concerns climate change.
Nowadays, there are many international instruments whose aim is to reduce the level of emissions projected into the environment such as the Kyoto Protocol or the Cancun agreements, that set the average level of emissions permitted by States parties to these main conventions.

However, in order to achieve this aim, technological advancement is necessary. Both the private and public sectors should invest in new technologies allowing the reduction of emissions so as to comply with these international conventions.

This is where Intellectual property right play a key role, most notably through patents : indeed, a strong protection of Intellectual property rights are an incentive for both the public as well as the private sector to invest in the invention and development of such technologies necessary because they are given an adequate legal protection regarding their innovations, inventions, .. Therefore, Intellectual property rights promote competitiveness and economic growth because they reward innovators and are an incentive to keep developing or improving new clean, “green” technology.
The ICC itself has published a “green economy roadmap” that underlines the importance of Intellectual property rights for the development of this “green economy”.
Intellectual property allows innovation, investments and trade as well as partnerships : indeed, many companies have found that sharing ideas and working in partnerships, even with competitors, is crucial for technological advancement. This is called “open innovation. However, this is only possible because of a durable Intellectual property rights protection (through trademarks, copyrights, mainly patents) that encourage collaboration and, in doing so, encourage this transition towards a cleaner technology.
So, a robust Intellectual property framework promotes the development and diffusion of clean technology.
This framework can only be upheld through a strong and stable governance that enforce the rule of law and through a stable economy : frail Intellectual Property rights are a limit to both investments and the possibility of “open innovation”, partnerships, international trade, transfer of clean technologies towards developing countries, ..

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Arthur Meeus/Domenico Zinga/Cesar Hoed  
The environmental protection will certainly be one of the biggest issue of this decade. Actually, the big meeting of the United Nation wich will take place in Paris during the begining of december, the so-called COP21, reveals how important became the environmental issue. Step by step people begin to understand the interest we have to protect our Earth, the biodiversity…
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The environmental protection will certainly be one of the biggest issue of this decade. Actually, the big meeting of the United Nation wich will take place in Paris during the begining of december, the so-called COP21, reveals how important became the environmental issue. Step by step people begin to understand the interest we have to protect our Earth, the biodiversity and how to use our ressources in a sustainable way.

The International Chamber of Commerce highlights the important role of intellectual property. The ICC hopes that the intellectual property will be a benefic tool and will enable the economic world to transit to a « green economy ». The organisation continues to provide critical feedback to governments and IGO’s on the role of IPR and encourage them for green growth and environmental taxation.

The world community has showed his willingness and his interest to conserve biodiversity, to promote its sustainable use and to share fairly the benefit of this use through different treaties. One of the most important is the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which recognizes the sovereignity of member countries over genetic ressources found within their boundaries, and sets out principles upon which acces to genetic ressources is to be provided. Even if the CBD was signed in 1992, some parts of his content had not been passed through law and in fact produced no effect. However, in October 2010, the Nagoya protocol concluded a new deal in term of environment in order to achieve the goal of the CBD. Those two legal texts are essential to set out the principles of access and benefit-sharing requirements but also to improve the access to the genetic ressources.

An innovative way which combines economy and IPL is the pollution permit aimed at reducing pollution. As long as it can sound akward, pollution permit is economic way to reduce pollution’s emission and encourage firm to invest in « greener » technology. It provides an economic incencitives for achieving reductions on the emmisions of pollutants. A central authority (usually a governmental body) sets a limit on the amount of a pollutant that may be emitted by a firm. If an company wants to pollute more, it would have to buy pollution permit to an another one. The selling’s company will have more money to invest in technology that reduce his emmissions and it will give an incentive for this company to pollute less in order to sell his other pollution permits. This market-based approach is way for governmental body to control the market of pollution and to influence firms to devellop new way of producing with less emmissions of pollutants.

Even if the innovation, the information society and others matters are fundamental, we think that the question of the environment is more important because it’s has been a key question often hides by the superpower of this world. China and the US are the biggest polluter in this world. They show a lot of ressistance to reduce polltion because of the economic issue. For instance, the US hasn’t signed the CBD yet. The world community has to put any kind of pressure on the superpower to push them on the right way. It has been unarguable that if we keep going in that direction, the blue planet will one day not be habitable. We think that gouvernments and international bodies must show a stronger involvement and policy towards polluter. They have to support, as much as they can, clean technology innovation and ensure that the private sector follow all the rules in term of environment. Despite the fact that they are no single international court which is dedicated solely to environmental issues, a series of international judicial bodies exist for the settlement of international environmental disputes. However, despite the number of available venues, it is unclear whether these institutions are capable of fulfilling the role required by the different treaties and conventions.

The UN has to create an independant judicial bodies which only deal with envirnmental issues and make sure that governments and the private sector comply with its decision.

Cesar Hoed
Domenico Zinga
Arthur Meeus

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Mathilde Bouillot, Sarah Gillet, Sixtina Delelienne  
According to us, the most important global IP-related issue is to be found in healthcare. Indeed, is has a strong societal impact given that it fosters innovations in the medical field and strives to better standards of living. In order to improve efficiency in the medical scene and in the research field, it is primordial to have a strong intellectual property…
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According to us, the most important global IP-related issue is to be found in healthcare. Indeed, is has a strong societal impact given that it fosters innovations in the medical field and strives to better standards of living.

In order to improve efficiency in the medical scene and in the research field, it is primordial to have a strong intellectual property system. Regarding innovation, they are insured by patents. In order to be effective, a strong patent is needed. Indeed, a weak patent discourages innovation and the sharing of ideas, since people are not insured that their idea will be protected. A weak patent means that without insurance, inventors are more likely to keep their inventions secret as they will not receive any benefits from it and they won’t be as motivated since no recognition will be accorded. This has also been confirmed by the 2012 World Bank report: ”A poorly functioning system to administrate patents and enforce property rights may create a deadweight loss for the economy and make it more likely for countries to be caught in a middle-income trap. Conversely, improved enforcement of property rights enhances innovation and translates into higher wages […]” (http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTPREMNET/Resources/EP98.pdf )

Thereby, a strong patent system is needed to encourage people to collaborate and create innovations. It has been noticed that countries, with policies that enable a strong innovation and investment, tend to have more collaboration in the healthcare system, whilst in developing countries the lack of knowledge regarding the intellectual property rights tends to be represented in insufficient innovation.

The International chamber of commerce in its 2014 Intellectual Property roadmap gives a certain number of suggestions for the future. It concludes that a lack of intellectual property rights and restrictive policies will only be counter-productive since the transfer of innovations, of which the health care, and its process can only expand with time and cannot be forced. Policies that are adopted should, in our opinion, promote innovation, support health care and allow transfer of information.

On the international scene however, it can be noted that every national jurisdiction has its own laws on patents, making international medical transactions quite difficult. An ideal solution would be to try and harmonize and collaborate as much as possible these different national laws, as it is already being done for the search and examination of patents. The European union followed that path, aware of that lack of a unified jurisdiction. They finally reached some agreements. Those were aimed at reaching a unitary effect, meaning that “the Unitary Patent shall provide uniform protection and have equal effect in all the states participating in the Unitary Patent System”.

To conclude, in our opinion it’s seems acceptable to affirm that as consumers, we naturally research better healthcare, this is why if strong patent allows better collaboration and effective research, we support it. Besides this, patents being only temporary, other firms will later be allowed to create a generic similar drug as the one protected by the patent.

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Angela BROUX, Laura GEYSENS, Nathan LUEL, Aude MAINGAIN  
In our paper, we decided to address the topic of climate change and its link with intellectual property rights (IPRs). As a matter of fact, we chose climate change because we consider it to be a current and global issue, that has an impact on all countries and that gathers many issues. More precisely, we analyzed issues and solutions advanced…
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In our paper, we decided to address the topic of climate change and its link with intellectual property rights (IPRs). As a matter of fact, we chose climate change because we consider it to be a current and global issue, that has an impact on all countries and that gathers many issues. More precisely, we analyzed issues and solutions advanced by different NGOs’ and some international organizations.

In a world ruled by capitalism, producing more, faster, and increasing benefits is the rule. In this context, the impact of the actual economic system on climate change cannot be denied. The countries cannot continue to produce without considering this environmental impact of their activities. In spite of international declarations (as Rio declaration), protocols (as Nagoya Protocol), regulations in order to preserve environment and to reduce pollution, the climate continues to worsen. As a consequence, countries and businesses have to work together; both public and private sectors have to cooperate in order to improve the situation.

A solution to ensure a sustainable development and to try to stem the climate change would be to change to an economic system based on fair trade. Some NGOs like Oxfam promote it. The guidelines of this system are for example: enforcement of international and national law, reduction of the use of pesticide and fertilizer, encouragement of raw materials use, reduction of production waste and of their environmental impact, support of local productions, the grant of wage to workers, improvement of the working conditions, etc.

Fair trade would be a way of putting together the public and the private sectors, states and businesses, in order to work together in a common project of economic development that is respectful of the environment and of the citizens. It would be a way to strengthen partnership between developed countries and less developed countries. It would ensure a better environmental protection, put the accent on the social dimension in the economic development, promote local production and domestic market while maintaining a global marketplace, reduce cost in investments which would be shared between public and private sectors, promote and aid innovations, etc.

In addition, it would foster partner states to enact a legal framework including IPRs in order to promote innovations, facilitate cooperation between different actors and make easier deployment and dissemination of new technologies resulting of the partnership.

The importance of IPRs in enabling technological transfer is also displayed when it comes to the development of solutions to reduce CO2 emissions. By a way of illustration, Greenpeace believes that South Africa is in a strong position to influence the fight against climate change as a symbol of African power. She is also a member invited to the G8. South Africa emits a lot CO2 in Africa coming from coal production. The government plans to restore old coal plants and to build more and more plants each year. The leaders also want to build new nuclear plants. Greenpeace calls for a reduction in global emissions as soon as possible.
Moreover, the association promotes a significant reduction in our dependence on fossil fuels, particularly coal, with the adoption of an energy revolution. Indeed, Greenpeace set up governmental objectives and an ambitious timetable. Although Africa doesn’t contribute to climate change, since they emit few CO2, Africa suffers heavily from the effects of this climate change. This causes either droughts or floods, with a detrimental effect on crops and resources.

While developed countries debate on what could cause climate change in the near future, it already threatens the most vulnerable populations on the planet. In that perspective, IPRs’ importance is growing. Again, technology transfers to developing countries could reduce the adverse effects of climate change. Indeed, with these new technologies, Africa could launch a form of “energy revolution”, decreasing global emissions and relieving part of the African population which is suffering from climate change.

As it was pointed out, climate change has a huge impact nowadays and creates many issues. Consequently, it becomes more than necessary to develop new, green technologies and disseminate them to where they are needed.

Nonetheless, the research and development of such climate friendly technologies requires a lot of investments, and that is why it is essential to create incentives for private companies to make those investments. The World Trade Organization (WTO) established an Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS); it contains plenty of provisions regarding climate change. These provisions concern patents, trade secrets, licensing of practices which restrain competition, other forms of IPRs such as trademarks and the suppression of unfair competition, etc.

The WTO sees this agreement as a way of promoting technological innovation. Indeed, businesses need and demand clear and predictable policies and regulations regarding intellectual property, before investing in projects about developing green technologies. They consider that intellectual property really plays a role in helping to create technological partnerships, and combine different green technologies coming from several sources.
However, the TRIPS agreement also contains a number of flexibilities. Those flexibilities allow governments to relax certain obligations of intellectual property protection, under some conditions. Developing countries are more than happy with these flexibilities, because they are a huge help for them in the access to green technology. Thus, flexibilities are a good way of disseminating new technologies, especially in the countries where they are needed the most. But not everyone has a positive view on this. Some NGO’s, among other actors, believe that IPRs flexibilities will not promote innovation, because they make investments more difficult and less predictable.

However, despite these legal efforts to promote innovations and technology transfers, some troubles remain. As a matter of fact, the NGO Third World Network (TWN) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) both point out the existence of a gap between this seemingly appropriate legal framework and the lack of local capacity to fully profit from it. Indeed, developing countries are often blocked at a stage where they have to import a lot of materials. Consequently, they still have to face high costs related to the use of patented creations or the buying of expensive licenses. Also, the OECD indicates that, while flexibilities might be positive, the modality of compulsory license, for instance, would not benefit in the long run since the know-how is unlikely to be transferred in this case. Thus, this highlights the deficit of means available at the local level to allow technology growth. Therefore, the OECD advocates solutions alternative to IPRs changes, such as local financial aids.

Another solution, mentioned by TWN, is the development of unpatented eco-friendly technologies or the development of technologies that would belong to the public domain. In that hypothesis, one would definitely have decided that the climate change issue supersedes the various commercial interests at stake.

To sum up, in accordance to what the RoadMap of the ICC set forth, there is a partnership between private and public actors to develop a legal framework which ensures enough stability for private investments. Therefore, public actors, should be encouraged to invest more in IPRs. To conclude, one could say that IPRs foster innovations as well as the diffusion of new technologies in developing countries, helping to fight back climate change.

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Cécile Carlier, Madelon De Witte, Marie Rotsart, Henri Léonet, Joséphine de Mévius and Elie Dewez  
Amongst the changes related to the evolution of society, one of the most important issues seems to be linked with the birth of internet. Today, our society is over-connected, information spreads out at a high speed and the sharing process is out of control. The amount and quality of information shared evolved at the same pace as technological advances such…
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Amongst the changes related to the evolution of society, one of the most important issues seems to be linked with the birth of internet. Today, our society is over-connected, information spreads out at a high speed and the sharing process is out of control. The amount and quality of information shared evolved at the same pace as technological advances such as high speed internet and sharing platforms (Dropbox, Torrent,…) The issue of intellectual property is directly related to these recent technological improvements. Moreover, it seems clear that interconnectivity is an ongoing process that will continue to expand in the future.
Intellectual property is challenged by technology. The artistic domains concerned are numerous : music, TV-series, movies, books. Basically, everything open to be copied in a numerical way. This abrupt availability has led to consumer behavior changes as the fall in cd and dvd sales. As a reaction, the artists themselves adapted their business plans accordingly. For example : the amounts of shows given has a tendency to rise as well as prices asked by artists to perform. Parallel income mechanisms developed in order to compensate the fall of benefits due to CD sales.
Nevertheless, it seems that these change in behaviors are far from counter-balancing the losses due to piracy. The question here concerns the survival of artistic creativity by implementing legal frames protecting intellectual property. Some major production companies claim that piracy would lead to the death of artists while other actors believe this is an inevitable evolution.
As part of the Net Generation we stand at the heart of this problem. Indeed, the staggering amount of available artistic work distributed through downloading platforms has made fraud easy and common. This reveals the outdated character of the repressive legislation condemning piracy. The authorities only seem to target the administrators of the biggest websites (pirate-bay, wawamania, megaupload,…) and force them to shutdown while nevertheless unable to prevent other sites from appearing. The “piracy hydra” seems immortal as several new websites replace the old ones.
Current legislation lacks effectivity as a large part of the population does not respect it. This issue is a concrete example of how law has to adapt to the evolution of society and popular perceptions of intellectual property.
This issue does not only concern certain countries but it is a world-wide phenomenon as exchanges between citizens of different nationalities are made possible. This international feature underlines the necessity of a global framework constructed through a multilateral discussion. We can say that the effects of globalization can be beneficial on one hand but on the other they can be pervert too. It helps artists to increase their audience as their work can be spread all over the world in a few seconds. Meanwhile, their work is endangered due to the fact that once on the internet it can be subject to an uncontrollable dissemination.

A second huge change related to the society is the environment. Environment include, amongst others, biological diversity and climate change. In the last decades, experts realized that our natural resources were diminishing on every day, so we have to tackle this problem as soon as possible. Unless the issue has not been released recently, society slowly begin to realize the impact of it. Indeed, we just read in the news the polemic related to Volkswagen, that did not respected the limits the pollution of their vehicles. The sentence is surely going to be very serious. Society thus try to fight against the environmental issue.
Society reacted by creating the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992, aimed at conserving biodiversity. But the CBD was not so effective, so other international agreements have been created in order to complete and details the CBD. One of those treaties is called the Nagoya Protocol.
However, an issue related to the intellect patent applicants using genetic resources to provide those resources or their origin, and prove theiual property of rights emerged. Actually, developing countries would like the countries that user permission to do so. But that request would slow down the inventions, leading to a lower performance in researches in better human condition.
According to us, that paradox is totally comprehensible. Countries want to protect their own resources and at the same time, we have to save our earth and our vital conditions. But a lot of international agreements have been created in order to manage all those issues related to the intellectual property rights, and it seems to be effective. Every human on earth deserves an amelioration in its living condition, that’s why cooperation is needed at a international level.
Next to that it is interesting to focus on the climate change, indeed in order to make things right a common effort is required by the public sector but also by the private sector of the industrialized countries as well as the less industrialized ones. But as said in the precedent point, the effort must primaly come from the government which must support new technologies through investments. A lot of agreements have been signed between countries (such as the Kyoto Protocol, the Cancun agreement,…)
Nevertheless, it is important not to neglect the private sector investment in the invention, development and deployment of the technologies needed to reduce emissions. This is an important proportion of the investment in general and the introduction of new IP flexibilities would reduce consequently this investment which is mainly provided by particularly patents. It may seems contradictory because these IP flexibilities would make these new technologies more affordable and then these new inventions would spread more easily but in fact and sadly the environment is also a business and nobody wants to invest in something that will not create a certain profit.

In conclusion, intellectual property is directly related to two main issues linked to the evolution of society. The first one is the fast spreading information through the Internet. Artists are the first to suffer from the high level of availability. But even though they try to adapt, protecting legal frame are absolutely necessary. Today legislation appears to be ineffective as piracy survives it. This problem must be treated on a world wild level.
The second issue is related to the environment, which is the new concern of the century. Society is now deeply concern with the idea of conserving diminishing resources. However a paradox exists between the desire to preserve the intellectual property right of ecological invention and the need to share it in order to save the earth and improve living condition. That’s why many international agreements were taken so to ensure cooperation. A common effort is indispensable both from the public and private sectors. Sadly even though flexibility in property right would make new technology more affordable it discourage investment. So the paradox persist.

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Yaron Moszynski, Eliot Sanam, Katharina De Acetis, Laura Ibanez, Sophie Dejardin, Martin Neira.  
As stated by the WIPO: "IP is protected in law by, for example, patents, copyright and trademarks which enable people to earn recognition or financial benefit from what they invent or create. By striking the right balance between the interests of innovators and the wider public interest, the IP system aims to foster an environment in which creativity and innovation…
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As stated by the WIPO: “IP is protected in law by, for example, patents, copyright and trademarks which enable people to earn recognition or financial benefit from what they invent or create. By striking the right balance between the interests of innovators and the wider public interest, the IP system aims to foster an environment in which creativity and innovation can flourish”.

The current landscape in the field of innovation is possible thanks to IPR. They simulate investment and cooperation.

After a furnished reading on the different areas of deployment of IP rights, our group came to the conclusion that the sector of Innovation was the most interesting one to discuss. Indeed, inovation typically requires substantial investment in education, research and development, and labor to bring a new idea to the marketplace. If others can steal the idea once it is proven, undermining the creator’s ability to recoup the cost of his or her innovative investment, the incentive to innovate is reduced. Innovation is, furthermore, a sector that is essential to and that cannot be excluded from the other areas developped in the readings.

In this paper, we will hence argue our choice by, first, developping the link between IPR and the economy to, then, be able to develop the one between IPR and Innovation and, finally, the one between IPR and the environment.

Nowadays with the globalization of our economy, the assembly and manufacturing are made in numerous countries through the world.

This process “creates value chains that generate huge flows of capital”. This means that a lot of people working and representing different entities work together in order to achieve something. Taking this into account, a question needs to be asked: can a mere trust between people makes this all system work and ensure its prosperity?

Actually in a era in which the link phenomenon becomes increasingly common, IPRs constitute an incentive for private sector to innovate. Moreover technology must be seen as a major element in sustainable economic development. In fact, if economic actors know that they will benefit a protection because of IPRs they won’t fear to work with other people and they would probably more easily participate to the global economy.

Problems arise then because each country has its own IPRs system. So there is clearly a need to harmonize IPRs for the wealth of the market. In order to ensure a great economic development governments must initiate this process. IPRs are a key component of foreign investment, partnership and international trade, permitting a “secured” sharing of knowledge that leads to the increase in development of local industries.

The idea here is that all this participates to the globalization improvement both economically and technologically speaking since IPRs are incentives to contribute to a well functioning economy because of ensured pay-back for investment and to fluent exchange because of protected open-innovation.

Despite the broad consensus that innovation is central to the long-run performance of an economy, there is no consensus on the issue of competition and innovation in IPRs protection. We should wonder to what extent and in what form should the IPRs of the innovators be ? Furthermore, should IPRs policy be coupled with antitrust laws and used to limit the monopoly power of technology leaders ?

As a matter of fact, we can see that in most industries a distinction needs to be drawn between “leaders” and “followers” companies. Indeed, the issue about competition and innovation rely on the fact that IPRs are protected differently depending on how technologically significant is the company.

To this end, a powerful effect appears in this competition’s interactions between leaders and followers, called the trickle-down effect, providing greater protection to firms that are further ahead of their followers. A step-by-step competition permitting so-called followers companies to copy or to use the leaders technologies would be particularly beneficial in industries where there is a large technology gap between leaders and followers.

This trickle-down effect could seem unfair prima facie, nevertheless when we look at it more conscientiously, we see that this effect implies that even if we give more IPRs protection to companies with indicative dynamically leads over their rivals, it also dynamically incentives companies with more limited technological leads. In plus, innovation will increase their productivity and will grant them additional IPRs protections.

The solution, in our opinion, is to thus introduce an optimal IPR policy that should be state-dependent and provide greater protection to companies with significant technological leads and only IPRs protection for those without.

Finally, another IP-related issue, the environmental protection also needs innovation. Governments should place this issue at the top of their to-do list. Indeed, biological diversity and climate change should be increasingly taken into account.
Moreover, the protection of the environment cannot increase without innovation: new technologies have indeed to be found.

Firstly, animal and vegetal species are increasingly disappearing, which is bad for the environment. Innovating in biotechnologies could enable to conserve biodiversity and to create new living organisms.

But also, our environment is threatened by pollution. The overall global warming and climate changes are direct consequences of this pollution. Engineers should be incited to invent new technologies still powerful but less polluting. In order to do so, innovation is capital. And Intellectual Property Rights inhibit the process of innovation by giving certainty and assuring return for those who invest in innovation.

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Alain Strowel

Interesting development on what you call the trickle-down effect. Not sure how that should translate in terms of IP policy.

Bogaert Gauthier, Steiger Nadia, Durieux Titouan  
Even though all of these policy areas are relevant, for our group, the innovation matter is the most IP-related issue. Innovation is generally seen by governments and consumers as the key for prosperity and progress. For the latter group, it is the thing that will entail a purchasing decision on the understanding that those individual decisions will possibly affect the…
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Even though all of these policy areas are relevant, for our group, the innovation matter is the most IP-related issue.

Innovation is generally seen by governments and consumers as the key for prosperity and progress. For the latter group, it is the thing that will entail a purchasing decision on the understanding that those individual decisions will possibly affect the GDP of a specific economy. This is remarkable ! However, in order to do so, innovation need some kind of protection that intellectual protection rights will provide.

As a matter of fact, it is obvious that the emergence of adequate solutions to global challenges such as health, climate change, job creation, education will rise with the improvement and widespread development of existing and new technologies known as innovations. It may be basically defined as the fact to put forward an idea in order to create a product or a service that will be put on the market. It is thus something new proven to be useful in a technical, organizational, financial, institutional or cultural perspective. Therefore, this clearly situates innovation as the basis for progress and evolution in all areas of human endeavor. It then becomes of central concern to find ways to find the right balance in flow of innovation: we need neither too few for desirable progress, nor too many for smooth adaptations. However, economic systems have troubles to generate a proper flow of innovations. It’s not easy to tailor proper incentives through institutional means to individuals, who are capable and willing to move ahead as creators and innovators, and find a system for sharing the advantages of the innovations between innovators and others.

This is where the role of intellectual property rights intervene. Intellectual property rights induce and stimulate technological innovation and economic competitiveness and they therefore play a decisive role in the support of the innovative capacity. IPR are thus critical tools that enable companies to amortize their investments and to assure a return to those who supply the necessary capital. Indeed, innovations are the result of constant efforts that IPR strive to protect. This is why IPR can be seen as an incentive for innovators to invest in research and product development for the benefit of customers and consumers. The use of those innovations of various kinds is perhaps the oldest institutional arrangement that is particular to innovation as a social phenomenon.

IPR as an important enabler of technology investments and transactions, support the innovative process and are a key component of enabling environments for foreign direct investment, partnership and international trade in goods and services. How innovation and IPR are so closely related is undeniable. “Effective systems of IP protection facilitate the transfer of technology and the development of local industry, by making it attractive for technology providers to not only invest but also to partner with local actors and share their expertise or “know-how”.” Over time, this collaboration will result in upgrading local capacity and knowledge base allowing a great base to be constructed for continued technology deployment, innovation and economic growth. In addition to its positive impact on growth and job creation, this process creates concomitant benefits for the achievement of public policy objectives such as better healthcare. Talk about an impact on society!

We can pretty much agree on the fact that technical progress, the promotion of which is the direct purpose of the patent system, has probably been the major determinant behind economic progress, and that the collaboration in the business and political world lead to an improvement in a lot of matters that have a great societal impact.

Sources: Innovation and Intellectual Property by Ove Granstrand (http://www.druid.dk/uploads/tx_picturedb/ds2003-891.pdf)
The ICC Intellectual Property Roadmap, 2014

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Margarete Simoes, mehdi El mansouri, jonathan kabeya, josé bambi,  
Our group decided to focus on the relation between the environmental protection and IP rights, specifically patents. The relationship between the environmental protection and inventions' protection is often argued over. The reason being is that we are sometimes faced with the dilemma of protecting the environment or technological innovations. However, a new idea reconciles these two objectives: since a biotechnological invention was…
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Our group decided to focus on the relation between the environmental protection and IP rights, specifically patents.

The relationship between the environmental protection and inventions’ protection is often argued over. The reason being is that we are sometimes faced with the dilemma of protecting the environment or technological innovations.

However, a new idea reconciles these two objectives: since a biotechnological invention was developed from genetic resources, the patent application should disclose the geographical origin of those resources. In fact, the objects of the Convention on Biological diversity are :

1. to conserve biodiversity,
2. to promote its sustainable use, and
3. To share fairly the benefits of this use.

The third objective reflects a delicate compromise between genetic contributing to countries, and the countries users of such resources, rich in biotechnology.

Previously, under international law, genetic resources fell within the common heritage of humanity and their users enjoyed relatively free access. Now, the CBD recognizes the sovereignty of member countries over genetic resources found within their boundaries, and sets out principles upon which access to genetic resources is to be provided.

In 2002, parties to the CBD urged “governments to encourage the disclosure of the origin’s country of genetic resources in application for IPR (…)”. This way, providers of genetic resources could easily carry on monitoring transfers of genetic resources and identify offenders.

So one must ask: does the prerequisite to declare the origin of genetic resources to acquire a patent can meet the third objective of the CBD? In other words, the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of this Convention?

Environmental protection is not the primary function of the patent system, but to stimulate innovation. Nevertheless, patent could be used as a mean to ensure the effectiveness of the CBD.

However, some fear the origin’s mandatory disclosures of genetic resources because it could results in additional costs for businesses. For example, if the cost to obtain patents increases, businesses might choose to protect inventions by trade secrets. Therefore, the obligation to disclose the origin would result in a reduction in the transparency of the process of research and development, which would be contrary to the objective sought. However, this seems unlikely for the following two reasons:

1. The cost related to the disclosure is likely to be low since it’s usually simple and factual scientific information, even necessary to describe the invention.

2. The capacity of imitation is high in this area; business remains highly dependent on the patent system to protect their inventions.

In overall, the origin’s disclosure could facilitate the monitoring of transfers of genetic resources and contribute to achieving the objective of benefit –sharing. This solution is limited by users’ ability to identify the genetic resources’ origin and the ability of providers to carefully analyse all patent applications. Nevertheless, it would be a significant step into a cooperative approach between both providers and users of genetic resources, whose symbolic value be as important as benefit sharing would arise.

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BAZI Olivia, DERYCKER Axelle, CODUTTI Justine, ENGELKING Michael, SHIHAB Simon, SOETHOUDT Gérald  
According to us, the issue in which intellectual property rights are the most important is the “information society”. Nowadays, content owners and authorized distributors are using networks to provide services, like Ebay or Amazon. The digital area has arrived and has an impact on several activities, several policy areas like “sustainable economic development”, ””environmental protection”, ”innovation”, “competition”. The main challenge…
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According to us, the issue in which intellectual property rights are the most important is the “information society”. Nowadays, content owners and authorized distributors are using networks to provide services, like Ebay or Amazon. The digital area has arrived and has an impact on several activities, several policy areas like “sustainable economic development”, ””environmental protection”, ”innovation”, “competition”. The main challenge is to deal with the difficulties in protecting the distribution of content in this digital environment. That’s why we decided to focus on the “information society”.

“Intellectual property protection is an essential pillar for the development of electronic commerce and the integration of information and communication technologies”. People hesitate to put their work on Internet by fear of being stolen. “One of the primary purposes of the copyright protection is to promote public availability of works that would otherwise not be shared with the public at large without a guarantee of the ability to protect them, and receive a return on the investment, time, effort and skill required for their production and distribution”. The main issue is to balance “the rights of creators and the interests of users in the context of such new technological developments”.

Intellectual property rights foster creativity necessary for the development of the Internet. Many protection systems exist to secure the new media platforms:
– The Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP) created in the 1990s provides ways to inform compliant search engines if they can crawl web pages on the internet.
– The Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) which is a technical specification informing search engines of the uses they can make of content publicly available on websites and enable new business models.
– Copyright Hub (1) is a website which can help get a permission to use somebody else’s work and makes the process of getting and giving permission quicker and easier for everyone .
– Linked Content Coalition (2) facilitates and expands the legitimate use of content in the digital network through the effective use of interoperable identifiers and metadata.

Furthermore, some courts grant injunctive relief in order to block access to websites who infringed Copyright protection. For example a download website (e.g. Mega Upload) was blocked because it didn’t respect the Copyright protection.

We should continue increasing “safe and legal accessibility of materials, a technically secure online distribution of works and digital rights management technology to protect such distribution and foster innovation and creativity”. That would lead to an economic development. When we download music/movies illegally on the Internet, it slows down the economy. As a result of the illegal downloading, we buy less CD’s and DVD’s because it’s so easy to find them for free on Internet.

With that respect, the most relevant intellectual property right is “Copyright protection”. This protection doesn’t have to fit any formalities, in opposition to patent, design and trademark rights (e.g. registration). The Design protection is only linked to the layout/shape of the creations but the content on internet is intangible.

The only condition to obtain copyright protection for literally or artistic ideas is “originality”. The copyright protection is valid for 70 years. This protection is the longest one, even if it’s not renewable (like Patent). When you upload a movie of yourself covering a Madonna Song, Copyright protection cannot be obtained because it’s not an original song. But if you write lyrics and a melody and you play it, it is considered original and subject to such protection. Copyright involves two rights:
1) Right of reproduction : prevents somebody from copying (or the original author needs to be credited)
2) Right of attribution : you have to indicate the name of the author

It must be noticed that the copyright protection “doesn’t apply to information, facts or ideas that this protection is limited in time and that many exceptions to copyright protection exist”. For example, it’s said that someone came up with the concept of Facebook before the official creator (M. Zuckerberg) stole the idea. But the first person who imagined this website didn’t have legal protection because his idea wasn’t protected.

“Governments should adopt policies to foster innovation and creativity on the Internet, through intellectual property rights. One way to achieve to this aim is to ratify and accede to the Berne Convention, TRIPS and the WIPO Internet Treaties and enforce the provisions of these instruments effectively. Belgium ratified the Berne Convention, enforcing a requirement that countries have to recognize copyrights held by the citizens of all other signatory countries”.

In conclusion, illegal download is increasing and stealing ideas becomes easier. People prefer not to disclose their ideas on the internet because they won’t receive a return on their investment, time and effort. As it slows down the economic development, we should educate people in order to reduce the use of illegal activities and to improve the economy (3)

(1) http://www.copyrighthub.co.uk/
(2) http://www.linkedcontentcoalition.org/
(3) Main reference : ICC Intellectual Property roadmap, 12th edition, 2014, pp. 58 – 79.

Students: BAZI Olivia, DERYCKER Axelle, CODUTTI Justine, ENGELKING Michael, SHIHAB Simon, SOETHOUDT Gérald

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EL-KHOUDI Sara, KARAMAN Anaïs, KOLJAJ Karolina, NEMBETWA Loola  
Innovation : 1. Background of the issue The intellectual property right related issue which appears to be the most important and relevant one to speak about today is that of innovation, as pointed out in the ICC 2014 Roadmap. Researches made by the ICC commissions pointed out that IP is actually used in innovative processes as a mean to help…
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Innovation :

1. Background of the issue

The intellectual property right related issue which appears to be the most important and relevant one to speak about today is that of innovation, as pointed out in the ICC 2014 Roadmap.
Researches made by the ICC commissions pointed out that IP is actually used in innovative processes as a mean to help policy makers design IP.

We must start by saying that the current marketplace is an ever-evolving one in which companies tend to come along with innovating ideas that they resort to in order to solve societal issues whether they are linked to health, environment, job creation, and education as well as food security. The availability of those innovations – understood as solutions to the problems we listed – depends on both the development and diffusion of existing and new technologies.

Therefore, new products, services and technologies are more and more created. Yet one ought to bear in mind that those novelties require a heightened protection of stakeholders’ rights. In such an innovating process, it is inevitable that disloyal competition, counterfeits, and piracy will take place and that enforcement on the Internet will become a major issue for harmed companies that are thus asking for stricter policies and protection, as will be discussed later in this note.

2. Considering stakeholders’ point of view

A. Businesses

Businesses and companies work for a purpose, which is to maximize profit in the most efficient way. Therefore they constantly need to provide markets with new products and services.

In addition to that, they have a huge interest in meeting the needs of emerging and developing countries : the application of technology and innovation consists of a critical resource which can generate significant development benefits. That is the reason why not only developing states governments but also private actors collaborate with companies. One way to uphold the benefits of a strong IPR protection is pointing out the lack of recognition suffered by IPR in certain countries, most notably in developing countries.

In order to achieve their goals, companies resort to a form of networked innovation known as “open innovation”, which amounts for the companies to share ideas and collaborate with partners and even competitors for they consider it to be the most appropriate path to embrace.

One could think that such collaboration could lead to disloyal competition since a collaboration between firms that were initially able to share knowledge and new concepts might end up into a dispute caused by one party infringing on the rights of the other. That is the reason why a robust and well-conceived IP protection fosters good conditions for different entities to work hand in hand by providing certainty and predictability.

IPR can thus be seen as critical tools that help reassure companies after they have invested large amounts of money in innovational products thanks to the protection they will grant them : that will help them amortizing investments as well as ensuring a return to shareholders.
As said, innovations and new technologies are a challenge for companies with regard to the control of production, it’s illicit distribution and brand using. Given the current state of affairs, it is no easy enterprise to have an utmost control when firms produce new goods, especially by reason of an increase in counterfeits and piracy.

B. Civilians and private actors

As seen in the previous section, it is now common knowledge that some companies infringe on other companies’ rights by producing counterfeits, and do so using deficient and inappropriate material. The items aren’t subject to the same quality control and do not transit via the same distribution channels. People’s awareness must be arose when it comes to buying counterfeits and not original products such as medicines, toys, car or airplane parts because they represent a considerable threat to their health, despite the advantage they represent from a financial point of view.
All in all, there is way more sanction than prevention in the field of innovation, which is why we suggest people to be better informed on the law as well as on the risks they incur.

Moreover, we can also consider civilians as potential business owner willing to enter on the market with innovating ideas. As already explained, innovations and new technologies will soon reign supreme, if they don’t already do. Their widespread on markets is such that it dissuades potential business owners and restrains their possibility to provide markets with ideas that are completely innovating, since there are already so many of them.

Nevertheless, we can’t deny the importance for creators to be granted the adequate legal protection, for the contrary would limit the occurrence of innovations. Society would suffer as a result, as claimed by the Incentive theory.

C. Governments

As previously said, governments have strong interests in providing companies with well-conceived IPR protection. Indeed if the latter feel comfortable and secured enough thanks to the legal frame their production will benefit from, they will keep innovating and launching. This new type of production is likely to generate a collateral job creation on the market since there will be a need for the specialization and ideas of experts or freshly graduated people that can best understand and work with new technologies.
There will thus be less unemployment that governments would have had to support plus it can favors foreign direct investment in innovating companies.

We finally noticed that governments along with academics can intervene in the area of basic research. The problem is that the commercialization of their discoveries requires consequent investments of private capital so a solution to this issue lies in the transfer of patents or the licensing of patents and related know-how to the private sector.

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Sarah Ziant ; François Matthieu ; Tom Hick ; Marie Robert ; Cyrielle Guillaume  
We do think that the legal issue regarding pharmaceuticals represents, to a certain extent, a general problem concerning our capitalistic economy. It exemplifies the tendency of getting the greatest advantage out of any business, which generally harms the poorest. This is, at least morally speaking, a negative externality. First, legally speaking, we have to notice that the fields of…
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We do think that the legal issue regarding pharmaceuticals represents, to a certain extent, a general problem concerning our capitalistic economy. It exemplifies the tendency of getting the greatest advantage out of any business, which generally harms the poorest. This is, at least morally speaking, a negative externality.
First, legally speaking, we have to notice that the fields of pharmaceuticals and medical devices are especially dealt by the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement (TTIP). This is supposed to improve trade and investment by suppressing limitations caused by regulations and other rules. This TTIP deal arouses both fears and keen interest, particularly among the European Consumer Organisation.
In our case (pharmaceutical patents), the intellectual property right (IPR) concern becomes literally vital. Due to the patent or copyright on one particular drug, pharmaceutical companies have some sort of monopoly concerning their product. This allows them to increase prices heavily (see for instance the case of Martin Shkreli).
This issue only arises due to Intellectual Property rights since, on the one hand, they allow companies to have the exclusive rights to manufacture drugs, at least for a given period (e.g. 20 years for patents). On the other hand, this enables greater investments into the very costly research on biomedicals since the expected and potential reward is quite attractive. So this one is a tricky one which requires an adequate legal solution which takes into account both pharmaceutical lobbies and the affordability and accessibility of pharmaceuticals.
In other words, we consider that finding a appropriate balance between sharing of ideas and inventions and the respect of the rights of creators and the interests of users is a major concern for Intellectual Property rights. Indeed, content, as well as ideas and information, should be disseminated through the Internet and technologies in general. It is here that the IPR should intervene: « one of the primary purpose of copyright protection is actually to promote public availability of works that would otherwise not be shared with the public at large without a guarantee of the ability to protect them, and receive a return of the investment, time, effort and skill required for their production and distribution ».
Let’s now get back to our most important concern in connection with IPR: the pharmaceutical field. The problem with patent-protected medicines is mostly their high-prices and, by this, their limited access. Moreover, there cannot be any competition to those medicines, especially because they are patent-protected. Indeed, this patent protection delays the onset of generic competition and, today, this is the “only proven method of reducing medicine prices in a sustainable way” (http://policy-practice.oxfamamerica.org/work/trade/intellectual-property-and-access-to-medicine/). So, a too high level of IP protection can durably damage public health outcomes. To fight against too high patent protection, Oxfam did, as an example, note down three provisions implemented by the TRIPS (the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) that they believed was the cause of the generic competition delaying. The first mechanism is the patent linkage (it “prohibits a country’s drug regulatory authority from approving a medicine if there is any patent in effect”), the second is the patent extension provisions (it “allows companies to seek extensions of the 20-year patent term to compensate for administrative delays by patent offices and drug regulatory authorities”) and the last one is the delay exclusivity (it “creates a monopoly that is separate from patents by prohibiting a country’s drug regulatory authority from approving a generic medicine based on the clinical trial data provided by the originator company”) (http://policy-practice.oxfamamerica.org/work/trade/intellectual-property-and-access-to-medicine/). Nevertheless, we might find an interest to the patent system. This interest is that the Government provides an incentive for Research & Development because it offers a monopoly opportunity through delivering patents. Moreover, this incentive, by stimulating the inventions, makes the public benefiting from technological improvement.
Having looked into intellectual property and the risks that can arise, we must not forget the following alternative: the owner of intellectual property may abuse of his right, which could lead to a monopolistic situation. If so, the balance between competition law/antitrust law and intellectual property rights would not be optimal. Indeed, in case of monopolies, the consumers do not have the opportunity to compare prices, as well as ideas and mechanisms, in order to respond the best way to their expectations. In the case of the pharmaceutical product, for example, monopolies result from data and market exclusivity and the consequences of this situation are plural: rise of healthcare costs, difficult access to medicines, contradiction with medical ethics etc. Moreover, any extension of exclusivity periods in the US or EU would cost consumers billions of dollars/euros a year. (see Resolution on Intellectual Property Rights in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership)
This is why the terms used in the licensee are crucial in order to correctly define the scale of the right and to avoid inappropriate reward of an intellectual property. Even if this hypothesis is quite rare, the competitors can’t be blocked without reasonable and valid reasons. If it happens to be so, Courts « analyse whether an agreement’s anticompetitive effects are outweighed by its pro-competitive benefits » (see Roadmap, p. 77). For example, in parallel with the information society and the Internet in particular, the TACD believes that « the TTIP should ensure protection of intermediary service providers from liability with respect to the transmission or storage of information. (…) Shifting liability on intermediaries might result in legitimate content being unfairly removed from the internet » (see Resolution).
According to the WIPO, IP laws « are designed to promote innovation and, at the same time, offer a mechanism ensuring that the fruits of that innovation are accessible to society » (http://www.wipo.int/patent…/…/developments/publichealth.html ). This obviously is only beneficial, but « Governments need to maintain an appropriate balance between incentivizing innovation, on the one hand, and, on the other, ensuring that new products are widely available. High levels of IP protection in developing countries exacerbate, rather than help solving the problem of access to affordable medicines » (http://policy-practice.oxfamamerica.org/work/trade/intellectual-property-and-access-to-medicine/).
As a conclusion, we might say that “at present, our biomedical innovation and pricing models are often hurt by anti-competitive practices, rigid Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) monopolies, lack of transparency across the board and weak social return on public research investments” (TACD-IP-Resolution-on-access-to-medicines.pdf). As Oxfam suggested it in its article, we have to generate greater innovation by making changes with the pharmaceutical industry itself and not by a new trade agreement.

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Adam Saafi Alexander Cicic  
It seems that the impact of intellectual property on innovation is by far the most noticeable. From Watts’s steam engine to modern mobile data technology, innovation has always had an extraordinary impact on society. Watts’s steam engine allowed the boom of the industrial revolution. Mobile data, on the other hand, allows on a daily basis tens of millions of people across…
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It seems that the impact of intellectual property on innovation is by far the most noticeable.
From Watts’s steam engine to modern mobile data technology, innovation has always had an extraordinary impact on society. Watts’s steam engine allowed the boom of the industrial revolution. Mobile data, on the other hand, allows on a daily basis tens of millions of people across the world to access basic services, such as banking services and information-communication services. These two stepping stones in human technological advancement were able to happen thanks to intellectual property rights, the legal protection it creates and the stability that derives from it.
Not only do intellectual property rights permit the correct environment for innovation but they allow the creation of chains of information sharing. One smaller, more specialised company can create a part that will then be added on to, or else used in something bigger. Simply put, intellectual property rights protect smaller companies from disloyal competition from their bigger, more diversified counterparts. IPRs allow all companies contributing to R&D to have their work respected and their effort duly compensated.
One important impact of IPRs on innovation is the enabling of “open innovation”, in other words when different, sometimes opposing, groups work together or at least use one and others work for further innovation. Intellectual property law allows the perfect compromise between commercialisation and technological advancement. One company can reap the economic benefits of developing a new technology while that innovation is accessible for others to continue innovating. It creates an environment that encourages innovation while not blocking its advancement in intellectual property monopolies.
The importance of IPR as a means to ensure effective stimulation and best allocation of Innovation can be highlighted when compared to Government-based initiatives such as compulsory licensing policies. Such policies undermine access to further innovation because foreign companies are discouraged from seeking valuable, sustainable partnerships in that jurisdiction.
One of the benefits that stem from creating an environment that better accommodates the protection of IP Rights is the creation of an educated workforce. An environment that stimulates innovation will nurture a more talented workforce, which in turn will provide an added-value to society as a whole.

Alexander Cicic, Adam Saafi

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Lina Alhathloul, Schurmans Nathan, Bogaerts Tiffany, Arcari Celine, Julie Vandingenen, Haikui Bersegian  
"Intellectual property (IP) is a creation of the intellect that is owned by an individual or an organization in the private or public sector which can then choose to share it freely or to control its use in certain ways". Each IP right ( copyright, patents, designs, trademarks, plant variety rights) have their own specific issues. But in the developpment…
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“Intellectual property (IP) is a creation of the intellect that is owned by an individual or an organization in the private or public sector which can then choose to share it freely or to control its use in certain ways”. Each IP right ( copyright, patents, designs, trademarks, plant variety rights) have their own specific issues.
But in the developpment below, we are going to concentrate on global IP issues and more generally on an international dimension. Therefor it implies that these issues,to be treated efectively should take into account policy-makers and consumers.
It is interesting to see issues with high public interest and concentrate on ones with a more technical issue (as developped by the ICC).
The IP roadmap therefor helps us understand the constant need for change and evolution in this particular area of law. In fact, constant techological evolutions lead to a need for IP evolutions as well and therefor leads to some issues.
The interaction between intellectual property and other policy areas is the main issue we are going to develop.

One of the most important ratio legis of the IP rights are the good developpment of economy. If the IPR system worked principally about an economic dimension of sustainability, during last years we saw that IPR envolves « green technology » of sustainability, it’s a sensitive issue for less developped countries. Moreover, intellectual property is a discipline in constant change, because of multifaced challenging, evolutions, innovations and also globalization, IPR have to be adapted at every moment.
The intellectual property, like every product, extend to the global market and for a country, to participate in the global market, IPR are necessary but not sufficient. Governement also have to promote private initiative. That’s not all, the businesses have to work actively in intergovernemental processes, respect their decisions, some of their mechanism, like the « facilitation mechanism”.

According to us, it is significant that governement and businesses have the same goals. Then governement can etablish IPR and economic structures to help innovators. Doing that businesses can work more easily with intergovernemental processes.

Concerning biological diversity, the natural environment is more and more taken into account. That is the reason why the CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) has been signed ; in order to protect biodiversity, to conserve its sustainable character and in order to share the benefits in a fair way. Nowadays, the European Union and 193 countries ratified that Convention. However, some countries have not passed law which would enable to achieve the purposes of the Convention. In addition, laws passed in countries for these purposes are difficult to be applied in practice. That is why the CBD Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity was ratified in October 2010. This protocol invite the parties to adopt measures in order to favorise the respect for the CBD. The patent applicants who use genetic resources should explain their origin or which countries provide it and prove the permission to use these resources. Business are however against the latter because it is useless and it is difficult to apply. In addition, it could impact the innovation with inventions and its exploitation. According to business, the IPR and the protection of the environment are compatible.

In our opinion, this topic is essential because the environment issues have to be discussed seriously and the collaboration between the countries is vital to achieve purposes such as the fair sharing of resources and its sustainable use. Therefore since IPR are important in this area, it illustrates the importance of the IPR in interaction with other policy areas.

Climate change is another policy area where IP interacts. It is an important and effective mean to assure necessary private sector investment in the invention and developpment of the technologies needed to reduce emissions. In fact, technological innnovations should be supported by policies that encourage and enable their developpment.

What about innovation?
The private sector is essential for innovation then IPR are important for companies in order to amortize investment and assure a return. IP protection enables a certain form of networked innovation (« open innovation »). It facilitates collaboration by providing certainty and predictability. The two essential actors related to IP, government and academies, must contribute and share their research with the private sector in order to enable the transfer of patents and the related know-how and to stimulate additional investment. This cooperation could also easily benefit to developping countries. Finding new IP and elaborate measures (such as tax incentives or direct government investment) could help developping countries to upgrade their technological capacity and partnership with the private sector. The use of IP to force the transfer of know-how can’t be used as it doesn’t consitute a sound long term strategy for technological advancement and growth. This type of approach should just be used in a short term policy with think about policies such as local innovative capacity and implements policies that support technology development and dissemination with suitable tax incentives or effective protection of IPR.

According to us, IPR also have an important negative impact on innovation that we should take into account. It reduces the possibility for other countries to get access to innovation from abroad. Innovation is based on sharing and collaboration then IPR limits these two aspects that are essential for innovation

Competition follows innovation. There are overlaps between competition law (called “antitrust law” in the US) and intellectual property rights (IPR). This question is regulated by TRIPS Articles 8.2 and 40 which allows WTO members to adopt measures to control anti-competitive practices based on IPR. We can highlight threedistinct ways in which intellectual property may lead to anti-competitive:

a) The owner of intellectual property may abuse his dominant position 


b) Restrictive licensing terms can be imposed by the licensorfor his intellectual property

c) If a patent office grants patents of low quality, if processesfor challenge are poor, and if the law is generally uncertainand punitive, then competitors of patents may choose to respect them rather than to ignore or challenge them. 


The first situation isn’t a concern for the US authorities because many reports have shown that the intellectual property rights only rarely create monopolies in the antitrust sense. However, the European Commission has long promoted the compulsory licensing of IPR in special market situations such as televisionprograms, the structure of the results of market research etc…

The second situation is regulated by guidelines of the American authorities and a “rule of reason”. Therefore, only agreements that restrict trade unreasonably are invalid under antitrust laws. Obviously, each situation is analyzed in concreto to see whether the anti-competitive effects of an agreement are outweighed by its advantages favorable to competition.

The European Commission is passionate individual in potentially restrictive agreements. It also grants exemptions to certain categories of agreements (the Regulation on agreements for research and development cooperation, the regulation on technology transfer) and publishes guidelines for those which are not covered by the block exemption. These regulations are of limited direct use for larger companies, in that the exemption depends on rather obscure market sharethresholds not being exceeded. On the other hand, if they list“hard-core restrictions” barring an exemption even if the market share is not exceeded, then larger companies have to consider very seriously before including them in agreements 


Concerning the last situation, recently the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, has highlighted weaknesses in US patent law, notably by reducing uncertainty on validity comparedwith the former “first-to-invent” law, by improving the opportunities for third-party attack on patents, and by mitigating the provision for triple damages.

We can conclude by saying that Europe is more involved and invested in tensions regarding competition law and IPR. Indeed, we could see that it was implementing more enhanced and above all more restrictive regulations, which stops the development of certain market such as research and development cooperation. Regarding the US, the regulation is more flawed and a greater freedom governs these issues. But we have seen that in some situations the question is better regulated.

Competition should also be protected in a domaine that is getting more and more important : the internet. We are going to see that networks should also have their IP protecion.
We are in an information society which developped digital high speed networks. There are several delivery platforms which provide services and content. But there is a matter, several factors are challenged with difficulties of protection in content’s distribution in the high-risk digital environment. IP protection is absolutely necessary for the developpmment of electronic commerce and communication’s technlogies. But be carefull, copyright protection musn’t apply to ideas nor to information. It applies to the form in which they are inked. However it’s not an absolute protection. Moreover there arre many exceptions. Copyright protection was also created to promote public availabilitty of works, because some skills and effort have been required to create them.
Legislations have tried to make a balance between two types of rights : users rights and of course rights of the creators, in the context of new technological developments. Basically, copyright protection wanted to promote a balanced and productive information society. Despite all the advanced business continues to seek a way to increase safe and legal accessbility of materials. And on the other hand, government seeks to promote innovation and creativity on the internet.

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Paul Forget; Aybike Bozkurt; Ornella Guillard; Yunus Hascelik; Alicia Debande  
Climate change is, for us, one of the most important global Intellectual Property-related issue. Actually, we are all concerned about this phenomenon and the development of the technology plays an important role in order to reduce the negative consequences of the climate change. Intellectual Property has a direct influence on technology and can contribute to mitigate this threat. Furthermore, non-governmental…
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Climate change is, for us, one of the most important global Intellectual Property-related issue. Actually, we are all concerned about this phenomenon and the development of the technology plays an important role in order to reduce the negative consequences of the climate change. Intellectual Property has a direct influence on technology and can contribute to mitigate this threat. Furthermore, non-governmental organizations (NGO) such as OXFAM or WWF take action to answer climate change.

Doctors Without Borders are very concerned with intellectual property law. Indeed, they took position on access to medicines in India (http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/…/indias-access-medici…) about the relationship between intellectual property rules and access to medicines. At this moment, they are trying to gut patent rights in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement defending the idea that patents “would give pharmaceutical companies longer monopolies over brand name drugs”(http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/help-us-fix-tpp) and that pharmaceutical companies want to keep medicines prices as high as possible. See the campaign on Twitter, hashtag ‪#‎BadDealforMedicine‬.

MSF is not really involved in climate change issues. But we could surely make a parallel between the resources needed to deal with pandemics and those who will be needed to deal with future climate change. These are indeed, analysts said the poorest countries will be most affected. We must therefore be careful not to see repeated the same kind of situation as patents and pharmaceutical companies.

Greenpeace is a pacific NGO that have for purpose to fight for the environmental protection at any level : protection of animal species, fight against climate change, protection of ground and water,…

Greenpeace use different method to achieve its goal, The NGO implement activism to advertise people of the biggest environmental problems and, thereby, forcing governments and companies to adapt their environmental practices. At the same time, to get change in a more diplomatic way, Greenpeace act also as a lobby.
The organization support treaty-making about environmental defense and climate change as Kyoto protocol, entered in force in 1994 and are fighting for CO2 emissions dismissing. The NGO also plays a role in the ecological expertise: a lot of investigations about environment and climate change are making by Greenpeace.

An important place is according to the IPR (patents in particular) in this kind of treaty because it provides a support to private sector investment to developing new “clean” technologies. This is the case of ADP (Durban platform for enhanced action) established under Kyoto protocol and hallowing IPR protection. This is an effective way to encourage companies to be cleaner and so support emissions reductions.

Oxfam is one of those organizations, which induce governments around the world to fight against climate change because of the various consequences that this phenomenon causes (poverty, hunger, drought and floods). In fact we forget too often it is the poorest people who are particularly affected by global warming, while they are the least responsible, because they do not have the financial and technical resources to adapt. Oxfam plays a vital role in this regard by encouraging the various authorities and politicians to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and promote sustainable energy resources. And so it is here that the question of intellectual property rights come into play because they have a great impact on the way technologies are transferred to developing countries. It appears, in fact, very important in the 21st century that intellectual property is able to give an answer to climate change. In this case, it is primarily the development and dissemination of new technologies that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or allow people to adapt the changement occurred by climate change. Oxfam is very interested in the fight against global warming and aims to ensure that intellectual property rights can always allow the apparition of new technologies in developing countries.

Intellectual property rights are important in the climat change landscape because it’s a global problem, which requires new and very sharp technological solutions. Every organization, public or private, should or is investing in research to obtain results in its own area of concern.

We will now talk about World Wildlife Fund (WWF). It’s a non-governmental organization, which is mainly focused on the conservation of nature, which impact them directly. WWF working policy is more organized on the basis of both collaboration and dialogue.

The global support from different stakeholders to innovation, and therefore research and finances, is essential. To help the organization, such as WWF, to develop and improve new technologies with the aim of reducing at maximum the catastrophic impact on the global climat, they need their researches to result on registering new patents, licenses… This will help them to reach their goals. The intellectual property rights that cover those patents are facilitating and validating the exchange of the new technologies and this will fit into the legal and political environment established by the working policy of WWF. As a matter of fact, as mention earlier, collaboration is WWF way of working to reach their objectives.

In conclusion, climate change can have dramatic consequences on the world. Some initiatives should be taken by governments to support private sector investments.
As mentioned before, climate change affects mostly the least developed countries, although they are not necessarily the most responsible.
The world needs a better long-term policy that will meet the needs of countries according to their situation. That’s why the UNFCCC is one of the pillars of climate change policy because it allows the discussion and the negotiations of solutions.

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Alain Strowel

Good visit of the NGOs sites, this was part of the exercise. But do you think that the NGOs focus on the relation between IP and climate change?

Chattaway Laurent, Cubillos Paola, De Fierlant Charles, Idrissi Bilal, Ouch Victor, Rees Hannah, Stockhem Ophélie, Vandenborne Olivier  
Intellectual Property Rights are a dynamic field shaped by technological, economical, political and social changes. They involve a broad range of crucial issues, spanning from biodiversity to climate change, from competition-related litigation to sustainable growth. Therefore, after having selected what seems to be the most important global IP-related subject, innovation. In the following paragraphs we will endeavor to present a…
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Intellectual Property Rights are a dynamic field shaped by technological, economical, political and social changes. They involve a broad range of crucial issues, spanning from biodiversity to climate change, from competition-related litigation to sustainable growth. Therefore, after having selected what seems to be the most important global IP-related subject, innovation. In the following paragraphs we will endeavor to present a brief summary of the matter, as well as to give our opinion on the positive and negative sides.

We choose to react about the importance of the interaction between Intellectual Property Rights and innovations, because, according to the definition of Intellectual Property Law, the latter is designed to protect the creator of a product and to help him getting the benefits made by it, so as to encourage new inventions. Businesses use Intellectual Property Rights to support innovation and creation: IPR thus insure that companies get a return from their investments as well as an incentive to pursue their goals, be it healthcare, biotechnologies and environment. Without IPR, no one would want to finance a product which may not be a potential source of revenue.

Furthermore, IP’s create partnerships in fast-changing markets between various similar sectors even though they may be competitors. It is what is called open innovation: companies use IP mechanism so as to provide protection of their products, while enabling them to collaborate and share know-how with their partners or rivals.

IPR seem to be the answer to many problems, but then is it really? Here is an example that shows the limits of such mechanisms. Indeed some developing countries lack the utilities and firms to create the relevant patents. Moreover, officials do not always realize the added value and the impact that could be brought in their societies from using IP’s. Information is thus first needed on the benefits brought by IP’s. Finally, the want of basic infrastructures also creates huge hurdles that IP related-mechanisms could not resolve. IP’s, although attractive, are therefore far from being sufficient to overcome those issues.

Another field showing the limits of IP’s is pharmaceuticals. As we stated before, IP’s are necessary for companies, because they represent an incentive to invest more. Their products being protected, firms are sure to obtain a return from their investment. This is particularly important in pharmaceuticals, since many years of research are necessary in order to develop new drugs. Companies therefore invest huge sums to enter the market. However there is a negative side to that situation: since prices are so high, it prevents other companies from entering the market, leading to situation of monopolies. Consumers have to pay those high prices, which is both economically inefficient and questioning the fairness of such a situation.
Quasi-monopolies created by IP’s also arise in the case of competition between developed and developing countries. Suppose Ecuador, one of the first producers of cocoa, tries to produce chocolate. How is it supposed to do so, knowing that Belgium and Switzerland already have IP’s for their brands, and have much better knowledge over the matter. Better developed countries have funds and competences to innovate which is the precise reason why developing countries will be excluded from the market. Would it then be fair for them to have a global patent system? Should some IP’s be consecrated on an international scale, so as to insure that everybody gets a fair chance, whatever their country?

Another point that we could underline is to know at which point a patent can be imposed on an idea. In terms of innovation, it will happen that someone has a new idea, a new concept. We know that patent cannot be imposed on ideas. But since the moment this idea is real, since the moment it has consequences in the real world, at which extend can the patent be imposed? It is a question that have to be asked and it has even more importance in developing countries.

IP’s also show their limits when very rich countries buy the patents of other innovations. Gulf countries, as they knew the petroleum era will come an end, have for instance acquired the rights to a new engine device that could be an alternative to fuel engines.

The instauration of IPR in underdeveloped countries would allow, not only to guarantee a bigger economical autonomy in comparison with the rest of the world, but also and above all, to develop. Indeed, IPR’s would provide a basis on which they could build a private market, independent from the international market, oriented towards innovation, and open to new international partners.

But one must stay down to earth: IPR’s are very complex rights. Even if it is an important goal to reach, such mechanism would not be so easy to implement in underdeveloped countries, especially because of the lack of infrastructure and the officials’ ignorance of the real effectiveness of IPR’s. However, let us not forget that IPR’s remain one of the most efficient tool to insure continuing innovation.

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Tabata Muñoz  
1) Competition Tensions naturally exist between competition law and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Articles 8.2 and 40 allow World Trade Organization (WTO) members to adopt measures to control anti-competitive practices based on IPR. But, What happend. What about “Chinese market”. Firstly, according to me, what appears to be the most important global IP-related issue…
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1) Competition

Tensions naturally exist between competition law and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Articles 8.2 and 40 allow World Trade Organization (WTO) members to adopt measures to control anti-competitive practices based on IPR. But, What happend. What about “Chinese market”. Firstly, according to me, what appears to be the most important global IP-related issue are the continuous IP violations perpetrated by a black list of emergent economies which includes China, Turquey, Rusia, Argentina…, and not only refering to IP breaches made by companies located on industrial cities who make it´s own national economy flow, but also about the enviromental worry western countries can´t get to control in the so closed excommunist country. But what I am really interested in is China. The first country in popullation, currently a military and economy superpower (having bougth a great part of the US debt, which makes it untouchable) and still needing from others to grow. Isn´t that the definition of a “growing economy”?

From a economic and political point of view, government of the IP responds to the interests and demands from a small group of industrialized countries with enough power to dictate the game´s rules in comercial matters. However, a right Reading of the TRIPS shows us that, in last instance, the Agreement looks for a conciliation between developed and developing countries.

Talking about IP rights and China seems to be a joke, and why is that? You must know for sure that many companies located in China make their living by copying everything you can get to imagine, from phones to intimate clothes, tv’s and even medicines copies, and that would not be happening if no one was buying the goods, but someone does, and, at the end of the chain, you do one way or another.

In Spain, where I come from, we have these all-cheap stores mostly haunted by chinese people where you can buy for example a bad copy of Adidas called “Adidos” and stuff like that, and you may be asking yourself why is this girl saying that? Does it have anything to do with economy? Unfortunately yes, it does have a lot to do with economy, because those stores we have talking about are the only ones that, in the whole year, have an economic stability even though buyers know the fact that they are selling products illegally copied, which is a crime and therefore, makes them criminals too.

2) Another important issue

Another issue we need to talk about is about the environment. In the last decades, discussions about the effects of trade on environment in economical, social, political and legal sectors have been multiplied. In the legal scope, “biotrade” stress was came about specially between contemporary environmental and commercial treated. Stress between environment and trade are caused by two lacks on environmental policy: a) the economical breach should not internationalize environmental costs which prevent that consumers and producers pay the price of the environmental damages they cause; b) the lack of a policy to remove the interests in certain sectors and adopt policies to internalize costs to protect the environment and, at the same time, promote trade.

The last thing that I have to say is about The Biological Diversity Agreement, and in relation with TRIPS it’s needless to say they are different and their application field very distant; notwithstanding, it shares a common goal, sustainable development. In these sense, mutual help becomes an international duty, for which we have to begin with an approach from both that allows to conciliate the implementation of the specific values and goals of The Biological Diversity Agreement with the international liabilities on IP.

3) Innovation

About 2012 and 2014 Roadmap, there are differences between the both years in “Interaction between intellectual property and other policy areas” we can find a new point dedicated exclusively to “Innovation”. Why this difference? Imagine this is 1979: If you were reading this article (this comment) back then, chances are you would have read it on paper — with a printed newspaper or magazine in your hands. Today, you are probably reading it on a desktop computer, a laptop (or as a printout from either of these), or perhaps even on your Blackberry or iPhone. This is the innovation!

Maybe for this reason the president of de US said in 2012:

“I believe that in order to be globally competitive in the 21st century and to create an American economy that is built to last, we must create an environment where invention, innovation, and industry can flourish. We can work together to create an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, and skills for American workers.” (Barack Obama).

In conclusion, we must be aware of this change and specially we must be careful. And is important to go step by step in order to avoid mistakes.

Links:

Economist, The (2013). ‘How Innovative is China?’, The Economist, 5 January 2013, online at http://www.economist.com/news/business/21569062-valuing-patents

“Comparing the 2012 Presidencil Candidates Technology and Innovation Policies” , The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, online at https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CFcQFjAHahUKEwjU7prZhJ7IAhVGLhoKHXGoCqE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2.itif.org%2F2012-obama-romney-comparison.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGb1BzpCWYjSIPv1mVcB5Z59xDWQQ

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Alain Strowel

Good research and interesting comparison between the 2012 and 2014 ICC Roadmaps, with the new issue dedicated exclusively to “Innovation”.

Vandersteen Loïc  
My opinion, the most important aspect of the ICC Roadmap is the issue concerning the information society. I think it’s a multiple challenge. This matter deals with the articulation of the right to be informed and on the other hand the property law. Indeed, I think under the right to be informed, some citizens break the intelectual property right. Apparently…
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My opinion, the most important aspect of the ICC Roadmap is the issue concerning the information society.
I think it’s a multiple challenge. This matter deals with the articulation of the right to be informed and on the other hand the property law. Indeed, I think under the right to be informed, some citizens break the intelectual property right. Apparently this issue is increasingly important because of the rise of the digital information moved on the wedsites. Since the eigthies the wealth of our Economy also requires the information seeking. According to some historians we let the mass consumption for the mass information at this time. As evidenced the improvement of all the communication tools as television, phone, etc. Today it’s more and more fast with the smatphones. The smartphone is a technological toy allowing to stay connected 24 out of 24 and even to receive mails from work while you are taking sunbath in hollyday.

The growth of internet makes easier the possibility of transferring informations faster and further. It seems help the production of new technologies. which is true in a sense is also in the other : under the ICC Roadmap « the intellectual property protection is an
essential pillar for the development of electronic commerce and the integration of information »

However this relationship between the both rigths is not free of madness. In fact the right to be informed and the intellectual property law are also partly harmful.
On the one hand I can understand we forbidden the public access for the formula for a new drug covered by a patent. However it should be understood that copyright protection does not apply to information, facts or ideas. If not we would be in a dictatorial state like the URSS before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
On another side the right to be informed made possible the creation of websites allowing data sharings such as the american website « Megaupload » which was fallen into crime because it allowed to share datas that was protected by the intellectual property law. Like music, books or films for instance.

In conclusion I would say there are advantages et disadvantages with the information society. The two things I find important are : firstly the information is extremly bounded to the intellectual property law. And secondly the future society seems even further connected and so it will be even more thirst for information. This is why I believe the egislation must be adjusted minutely to protect the information consumer rights and also the creator rights.

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Rachel Renard, Charlène Roussel, Frédéric De Clerck, Olivia Tuyumbu, Khatia Zhvania et Burcu Sümer  
Intellectual property rights are important tools for promoting technological and cultural advancement and by this way innovation can have a real societal impact. This is why we think that innovation is the most important global IP related issue. We will start by defining what innovation is and explaining the role of intellectual property rights in the innovation process. Innovation is the…
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Intellectual property rights are important tools for promoting technological and cultural advancement and by this way innovation can have a real societal impact. This is why we think that innovation is the most important global IP related issue.

We will start by defining what innovation is and explaining the role of intellectual property rights in the innovation process. Innovation is the fact of launching a new idea and applying it concrete cases. An efficient utilisation of the tools of intellectual property rights contribute to reduce the risks under which the authors are exposed. These authors can also earn an acceptable sum of money from their participation to the process.

The intellectual property rights are also useful to “enable companies to amortize such investments and to assure a return to those who supply the necessary capital”.

“New product development depends on the ability to pull together ideas, expertise and innovations from multiple disciplines, from multiple entities (both public and private) and from multiple countries” for this intellectual property rights are needed to protect the authors of the ideas.

Above that, intellectual property rights allows an “open innovation” which is a form of networked innovation where companies are able to work closely with partners and even competitors in many different ways like sharing ideas among others. This open innovation empowers companies by providing certainty and predictability.

Among these intellectual property rights, patents are the most important because patents promote innovation by allowing the inventor to recoup his investments. As the article 7 of the TRIP’s mentions it, patents and other intellectual property rights “should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology to the mutual advantage of producers and users of technological knowledge”.

The problem with patents is that there’s a time limit that lasts 20 years so the author/company must find another protection.

All these protections allows the authors to produce ideas they maybe wouldn’t have done if they hadn’t existed. The economic reward that these intellectual property rights give them encourage them to innovate. The incentive theory shared this idea that “If creators were not given adequate legal protection, many innovations would not occur and society would suffer as a result”. So intellectual property rights have a positive impact on society.

The impact on society is not only cultural but also economic because innovation and intellectual property are two main elements for empowering business. “Technology can generate significant development benefits. […] IPR support the innovative process and are a key component of enabling environments for foreign direct investment, partnership and international trade in goods and services»

The healthcare of society can also be improved by intellectual property rights. If the brand Aspirin didn’t have intellectual property protections the investors wouldn’t have accepted to give so much money on an innovation on which they would be losing their own monopoly over the aspirin molecule. Thanks to the trademark the Aspirin inventor Felix Hoffman could beneficiate of the brand to protect its market share endlessly.

But, we can see that despite the fact that the intellectual property rights give many advantages, they’re not enough to protect from every risks without any time limit.

Currently the governments are overwhelmed by the new technologies and the new inventions of the last decades. Due to globalization and internet, there is a need for better and harmonized protection on many different intellectual property rights among others trademarks and design. The scope of protection that these rights afford need to be clarified.
Therefore “policies aimed at forcing technology transfer, such as compulsory licensing, do not constitute a sound long-term strategy for technological advancement and growth.”

The governmental policies aimed at forcing technology transfer should be avoided and or limited to extremely rare short-term situations where there’s truly no alternative.

In conclusion, the innovation is a process who comes from the conception of an idea until the launching of a new product on the market. The intellectual property rights can be used efficiently to facilitate access to innovation. The new technologies have a better chance to be imposed on the market if intellectual property rights are used in a strategic way.

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Alain Strowel

Thanks a lot. You conclude that “The intellectual property rights can be used efficiently to facilitate access to innovation.” Is it not the opposite?

Marie Rygaert  
This is the answer of the group composed of Nathalie De Mol, Christie Kafrouni, Julie Mattelaer, Ariane Warnimont and Marie Rygaert. We consider that competition is one of the most important IP-related global issues. Even within our group this topic was source of many debates, but we feel it is important because it impacts our everyday life. If you go…
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This is the answer of the group composed of Nathalie De Mol, Christie Kafrouni, Julie Mattelaer, Ariane Warnimont and Marie Rygaert.

We consider that competition is one of the most important IP-related global issues.
Even within our group this topic was source of many debates, but we feel it is important because it impacts our everyday life.

If you go online and search something like ‘pros and cons of patents’, the first argument that pops up as an advantage for the person who gets the patent, is the fact that it limits competition. Of course this is seen as something positive from the point of view of the owner of the IPR, but we feel that it has many drawbacks from the point of view of consumers and smaller businesses.

If patents are too protective, it may restrain the creativity and/or productivity of other people who would have been interested in creating and selling the same kind of product, maybe with slight changes.
So limiting competition leads to less choice for individuals. If a product is so well protected that other companies can’t produce anything close to it, it means consumers have no choice. Only one brand will exist for that specific product.
Another consequence of such a situation of monopoly is that the company who owns the IPR will be able to set the price on its own, and it will do so at a higher rate than it could have, had there been other companies on that market. This may prevent people from enjoying the benefits of that invention.
We also think that this system advantages bigger bussinesses. Those have the money necessary to pay qualified lawyers to look into the existing patents, while smaller businesses with less means waste more time, deciding whether or not to get a patent, how to do it properly, and so on.

On the other hand, patents do protect the inventions of companies, that may be otherwise not investing (and this is linked to the ‘innovation issue’).
We could also argue that IP protection pushes competition, in the sense that each company has to improve its products constantly to stay ahead of the progress, and not be stuck because of IPR.

One thing we noticed in the text was that the USA is a bit laxist about this issue of competition, in comparison to Europe anyway, because they give more freedom to licensors. We think the right balance needs to be found, between the interests of the companies and the interests of indviduals. On that note we tend to agree with the decisions taken by the EU as depicted in the text.

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