The Interplay of Offshoring of Professional Services, Law, Intellectual Property, and International Organizations

Abstract

This paper covers four issues essential to understanding the interplay between law, the offshoring of professional services, intellectual property, and international organizations. First, this paper examines the extent to which evolving international conventions restrict the ability of countries, especially developed countries, to inhibit offshoring with the objective of protecting jobs at home. Second, it looks at statistics from independent sources to see if the U.S. ultimately benefits or loses when outsourcing occurs—i.e., whether offshoring exceeds insourcing, or vice versa, in the case of the U.S. Third, it cites specific examples to predict future legal trends in outsourcing. Fourth, it looks at the intellectual property aspects of outsourcing, and suggests equitable protection of intellectual property in an economy with increased offshoring.