Sara Bannerman

WIPO and the ACTA threat

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been seen as a potentially existential threat to the existing World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The ACTA threat to WIPO has a number of predecessors. WIPOs centrality to international intellectual property norm-setting encountered its first major challenge in 1952 when the Universal Copyright Convention was established under UNESCO. It encountered a second major challenge with the establishment of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (the TRIPs Agreement). The ACTA challenge thus potentially represents a third instance where a major competing norm-setting institution has challenged WIPO. This paper outlines the main proposals for an ACTA institution, the various possible forms that an ACTA-WIPO relationship could take, and various strategies that WIPO could use to maintain its role in the international intellectual property system. Finally, it reviews a number of public policy concerns that the institutional proposals for ACTA pose.

Rising Economies in the International Patent Regime: From Rule-breakers to Rule-changers and Rule-makers

ABSTRACT Rising economies face a crucial dilemma when establishing their position on international patent law. Should they translate their increasing economic strength into political power to further developing countries’ interests in lower levels of international patent protection? Or, anticipating a rising domestic interest in stronger international patent protection, should they adopt a position that favours maximal patent protection? Drawing on multiple case studies using a most-similar system design, we argue that rising economies, after having been coerced into adopting more stringent patent standards, tend to display ambivalent positions, trapped in bureaucratic politics and caught between conflicting domestic constituencies. We find that the recent proliferation of international institutions and the expansion of transnational networks have contributed to fragmentation and polarisation in domestic patent politics. As a result, today’s emerging economies experience a more tortuous transformative process than did yesterday’s. This finding is of particular relevance for scholars studying rising powers, as well as for those working on policy diffusion, regulatory regimes, transnational networks and regime complexes.

Tigers and Dragons at the World Intellectual Property Organization

The IP regime provides an interesting case to study the rise of new powers in multilateral institutions. It is an exceptionally long-standing regime, with two of its pillar conventions, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, dating back to the nineteenth century. Today, the IP regime displays a remarkable institutional density. WIPO administers 24 treaties in addition to the century-old Paris and Berne Conventions. Some other IP treaties are hosted elsewhere, such as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) at the WTO and the Universal Copyright Convention at UNESCO. This historical depth and institutional breadth offers unique opportunities to explore the role and behavior of rising