Intellectual Property Agreements Research Articles

BRICS in the Digital Age: Investigating Technological Innovation and Knowledge Sharing as Catalysts for Economic Transformation

The digital age presents unparalleled opportunities for economic transformation, particularly for emerging economies like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). This study investigates the role of technological innovation and knowledge sharing as catalysts for economic development through a normative juridical analysis of legal frameworks. The findings reveal significant disparities in intellectual property laws, data governance policies, and innovation ecosystems among BRICS nations, hindering seamless collaboration. The study emphasizes the need for harmonized juridical mechanisms to address challenges such as digital inequality, cybersecurity threats, and geopolitical tensions. By proposing unified intellectual property agreements, standardized data governance policies, and joint R&D programs, the research offers actionable insights into fostering innovation and collaboration for sustainable economic transformation in the digital era.

Dismantling Silos: Academia, Industry, and a Science Museum Working Together

ABSTRACT A partnership between four universities, an industrial research lab, and a public science museum, created as a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center, offers diverse collaboration and learning opportunities in cellular engineering. Each institution plays a vital role: universities advance science education, industry develops and commercializes technologies based on basic research, and science museums educate and engage the public. However, differences in the culture, values, and focus of these institutions create collaboration challenges. Three workshops highlight how consistent funding, intellectual property agreements, shared facilities, and long-term collaborations can harness the strengths of each institution to promote rapid prototyping, confront global problems, and encourage commercial applications from research.

Enabling equitable and affordable access to novel therapeutics for pandemic preparedness and response via creative intellectual property agreements.

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that the current purely market-driven approaches to drug discovery and development alone are insufficient to drive equitable access to new therapies either in preparation for, or in response to, pandemics. A new global framework driven by equity is under negotiation at the World Health Organization to support pandemic preparedness and response. Some believe that the global intellectual property (IP) system itself is part of the problem and propose a purely Open Science approach. In this article, we discuss how existing IP frameworks and contractual agreements may be used to create rights and obligations to generate a more effective global response in future, drawing on experience gained in the COVID Moonshot program, a purely Open Science collaboration, and the ASAP AViDD drug discovery consortium, which uses a hybrid, phased model of Open Science, patent filing and contractual agreements. We conclude that 'straight to generic' drug discovery is appropriate in some domains, and that targeted patent protection, coupled with open licensing, can offer a route to generating affordable and equitable access for therapy areas where market forces have failed. The Extended Data contains a copy of our model IP policy, which can be used as a template by other discovery efforts seeking to ensure their drug candidates can be developed for globally equitable and affordable access.

Intellectual property rights and limitations on farmers’ rights in Pakistan

Farmers are the life blood of agriculture. The role of farmers for the services done to agro diversity and their efforts to seed preservation, sufficiently justify their rights to seed. In the wake of World Trade Organization- Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (WTO-TRIPS) agreement on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection for all innovations including plants. Farmers’ traditional rights are compromised over breeders of new plant varieties. This paper aims to describe international plant protection systems under WTO-TRIPS and examines two international conventions on plant protection i.e., Seed treaty and Convention on Biological Diversity. This paper employs a doctrinal method to examine the rights of farmers in Pakistan by adoption of “Plant Breeders’ Rights Act”. It is revealed that the Act limits the traditional rights of farmers’ and have helped to gratify plant breeders; Pakistan despite signatory to seed treaty has ignored to protect rights of farming communities while, in compliance to WTO-TRIPS went on to a stricter model of IPR barring farmer’s right even to seed except saving and exchanging’. The study proposes some strategies to balance between the rights of farmers with that of breeders, thus, to achieve a better reform system for both growers’ and agro technologists.

Intellectual Property Regimes in Central Asia: Assessing Innovation Performance, International Agreements, And WTO Participation

This article presents a comprehensive examination of the intricate relationship between intellectual property (IP) and trade in the context of Central Asia, a region characterized by burgeoning economic development and the pursuit of international trade integration. The study has two overarching sections: the first examines the intellectual property landscape, while the second elaborates the region's participation in the World Trade Organization (WTO). IP segment commences with an evaluation of Central Asian countries' innovation performance, drawing insights from the Global Innovation Index 2023. It proceeds to dissect the patterns of ratification of international IP agreements in the region. Subsequently, it delves into the implications of intellectual property activities, offering a comparative analysis of the experiences of Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in 2021. Shifting focus to the WTO section, the study examines the role of the WTO in Central Asia's trade and IP landscape. It provides an overview and analysis of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and its influence on IP protection. Finally, it explores the challenges and advancements in IP protection, laying bare the contrast between Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. This article yields a multifaceted understanding of the intricate interplay between IP and trade within the Central Asian region. It unravels critical insights, emphasizing the evolving significance of IP in the landscape of international trade and offering a robust foundation for further exploration and policy deliberations in this dynamic domain.

The least developed countries' transitional exemption in the TRIPS agreement and the strength of intellectual property protection

Has the transitional exemption granted to the least developed countries (LDCs) Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the WTO's Trade-Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement helped LDCs reduce the strength of their Intellectual Property Protection (IPR)? The present study addresses this question by using 24 LDCs (treatment group) and two control groups, over the period from 1970 to 2015. The empirical analysis has established that the LDC transitional exemption was instrumental in reducing the IPR levels in LDCs, and LDCs that had lower IPR levels (i.e., those located in the lower quantiles) enjoyed larger reductions in IPR levels, thanks to this transitional exemption. Moreover, the effect of the LDC transitional exemption on LDCs' IPR levels depended on LDCs' duration of the membership in the WTO, as well as on their level of export variety-driven innovation, measured by their level of export product concentration or alternatively their degree of economic complexity.

How to Study Global Lawmaking: Lessons from Intellectual Property Rights and International Health Emergencies

International agreements on Intellectual Property (IP) have proven to be a good example to study global lawmaking. Beginning by looking at the 1990s Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement and into the negotiation and implementation of regional and national trade agreements, this article reflects on the intricate relationship between international IP agreements and public health. The comprehensive analysis of these international rules and their effect provides valuable insights into the dynamic interplay between domestic and international factors in shaping health policies. Building upon the IP case, we categorize existing scholarship on global lawmaking into three methodological approaches: ( a) methodological internationalism, ( b) methodological nationalism, and ( c) the interplay between domestic and international factors. We close with a call for researchers to advocate and integrate into their methods a co-constitutive approach that considers the simultaneous shaping of domestic and international elements.

The role of implementation organizations in scaling evidence-based psychosocial interventions

BackgroundTo bring evidence-based interventions (EBIs) to individuals with behavioral health needs, psychosocial interventions must be delivered at scale. Despite an increasing effort to implement effective treatments in communities, most individuals with mental health and behavioral problems do not receive EBIs. We posit that organizations that commercialize EBIs play an important role in disseminating EBIs, particularly in the USA. The behavioral health and implementation industry is growing, bringing the implementation field to an important inflection point: how to scale interventions to improve access while maintaining EBI effectiveness and minimizing inequities in access to psychosocial intervention.Main bodyWe offer a first-hand examination of five illustrative organizations specializing in EBI implementation: Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Incredible Years, Inc.; the PAXIS Institute; PracticeWise, LLC; and Triple P International. We use the Five Stages of Small Business Growth framework to organize themes. We discuss practical structures (e.g., corporate structures, intellectual property agreements, and business models) and considerations that arise when trying to scale EBIs including balancing fidelity and reach of the intervention. Business models consider who will pay for EBI implementation and allow organizations to scale EBIs.ConclusionWe propose research questions to guide scaling: understanding the level of fidelity needed to maintain efficacy, optimizing training outcomes, and researching business models to enable organizations to scale EBIs.

Traditional Economists or Third Worldists? The Effect of Intellectual Property Rights on Economic Growth in Developing Countries

This study investigates the effect of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) on economic growth in 76 developing countries using panel data analysis over the period of 2008-2019. IPRs and the economic growth relationship have been discussed in the empirical literature. On the other hand, Third World Approach to International Law (TWAIL) scholars promote the idea that international law is a hegemonic tool of developed countries, and IPRs may be subjected to their arguments due to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreements (TRIPs). Results provide that IPRs positively and significantly affect economic growth in developing countries, whereas there is no U-Shaped relationship between them. The study suggests that IPRs protection should be highlighted in developing countries to achieve greater economic growth, and approves the perspective of traditional economists’ approach over TWAILers.

Evaluation of the portability of computable phenotypes with natural language processing in the eMERGE network

The electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network assessed the feasibility of deploying portable phenotype rule-based algorithms with natural language processing (NLP) components added to improve performance of existing algorithms using electronic health records (EHRs). Based on scientific merit and predicted difficulty, eMERGE selected six existing phenotypes to enhance with NLP. We assessed performance, portability, and ease of use. We summarized lessons learned by: (1) challenges; (2) best practices to address challenges based on existing evidence and/or eMERGE experience; and (3) opportunities for future research. Adding NLP resulted in improved, or the same, precision and/or recall for all but one algorithm. Portability, phenotyping workflow/process, and technology were major themes. With NLP, development and validation took longer. Besides portability of NLP technology and algorithm replicability, factors to ensure success include privacy protection, technical infrastructure setup, intellectual property agreement, and efficient communication. Workflow improvements can improve communication and reduce implementation time. NLP performance varied mainly due to clinical document heterogeneity; therefore, we suggest using semi-structured notes, comprehensive documentation, and customization options. NLP portability is possible with improved phenotype algorithm performance, but careful planning and architecture of the algorithms is essential to support local customizations.

The inadequacy of copyright-related provisions in economic partnership agreements between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific regional groups from an educational perspective

In 2000, the European Union (EU) undertook to enter into economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regional groups with the intention of promoting development by implementing tariff-free trade structures with ACP states. A number of these agreements, once entered into, contained provisions regarding intellectual property rights and technology transfer. However, the provisions in these agreements regarding intellectual property protection and enforcement appeared to oblige contracting states to follow the directives as espoused in pre-existing intellectual property agreements. This contribution argues that those agreements do not adequately address educational concerns in developing ACP states, and that, if the EU is concerned about the long-term development of ACP states and regional groups, it should take adequate steps to facilitate knowledge transfer on an equitable basis through copyright mechanisms.

Drug repurposing: a systematic review on root causes, barriers and facilitators

BackgroundRepurposing is a drug development strategy receiving heightened attention after the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization of several repurposed drugs to treat Covid-19. There remain knowledge gaps on the root causes, facilitators and barriers for repurposing.MethodThis systematic review used controlled vocabulary and free text terms to search ABI/Informa, Academic Search Premier, Business Source Complete, Cochrane Library, EconLit, Google Scholar, Ovid Embase, Ovid Medline, Pubmed, Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collection databases for the characteristics, reasons and example of companies deprioritizing development of promising drugs and barriers, facilitators and examples of successful re-purposing.ResultsWe identified 11,814 articles, screened 5,976 for relevance, found 437 eligible for full text review, 115 of which were included in full analysis. Most articles (66%, 76/115) discussed why promising drugs are abandoned, with lack of efficacy or superiority to other therapies (n = 59), strategic business reasons (n = 35), safety problems (n = 28), research design decisions (n = 12), the complex nature of a studied disease or drug (n = 7) and regulatory bodies requiring more information (n = 2) among top reasons. Key barriers to repurposing include inadequate resources (n = 42), trial data access and transparency around abandoned compounds (n = 20) and expertise (n = 11). Additional barriers include uncertainty about the value of repurposing (n = 13), liability risks (n = 5) and intellectual property (IP) challenges (n = 26). Facilitators include the ability to form multi-partner collaborations (n = 38), access to compound databases and database screening tools (n = 32), regulatory modifications (n = 5) and tax incentives (n = 2).ConclusionPromising drugs are commonly shelved due to insufficient efficacy or superiority to alternate therapies, poor market prospects, and industry consolidation. Inadequate resources and data access and challenges negotiating IP are key barriers to repurposing reaching its full potential as a core approach in drug development. Multi-partner collaborations and the availability and use of compound databases and tax incentives are key facilitators for repurposing. More research is needed on the current value of repurposing in drug development and how to better facilitate resources to support it, where valuable, especially financial, staffing for out-licensing shelved products, and legal expertise to negotiate IP agreements in multi-partner collaborations.Trial registrationThe protocol was registered on Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/f634k/) as it was not eligible for registration on PROSPERO as the review did not focus on a health-related outcome.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LICENSES AND ASSIGNMENTS IN IRANIAN LAW: FROM TRADITIONAL RULES OF CONTRACT LAW TO NEW NECESSITIES OF MODERNISATION

Assignments and licenses of intellectual property rights have become very common and important in the Iranian economy. Due to this development, the legal system needed to undergo reforms to cater to the specific characteristics of these types of contracts. To achieve this, the Iranian legislator has attempted to provide a number of articles in the main laws concerning intellectual property agreements. Two bills concerning industrial property and literary and artistic property have been drafted which include several provisions in this regard. This descriptive-analytical article intends to introduce licenses and assignments of intellectual property rights in Iran and explain the rules applicable to them in order to provide a basis for further studies on this topic. The findings of this study show that the attempts made by the Iranian legislators to regulate the assignments and licenses of intellectual property rights, although valuable, are not perfect and thus, it is recommended that specific provisions are enacted to deal with different aspects of those contracts. Until the legislator takes that step, where necessary, such contracts are governed by the general rules of traditional contracts which originate from the rich sources of Imamiah jurisprudence and legal doctrine.

Establishing successful university–industry collaborations: barriers and enablers deconstructed

University–Industry Collaboration networks are increasingly significant to national economies. Previous studies have identified barriers and enablers of University–Industry Collaborations, however our understanding of the evolution of such collaborations is still limited thereby restricting our ability to nurture their development. This study explores the establishment of a successful University–Industry Collaboration and considers a range of perceived barriers and enablers through four emergent evolutionary phases: embryonic, initiation, engagement and established. The study adopted a qualitative research approach using a single site case study, focusing on the pharmaceutical industry, with 10 multinational firms and 8 academic institutions involved in a pharmaceutical collaboration. The results demonstrate that specific University–Industry Collaboration barriers and enablers emerge at different points in time, for example, strong lack of trust; strong fear of knowledge leakage, reluctance to share in the embryonic phase evolve to achieving integrity based trust and an intellectual property agreement in the engagement phase. These barriers were overcome using a range of phase appropriate mechanisms, for example, prior experience of the partners was critical in the embryonic phase, while cohesiveness and knowledge complementarity were vital in the engagement phase. The study emphasizes the significance of public funding and its distribution among members in order to support industry evolution and competitiveness. The University–Industry Collaboration continues to attract new participants and additional network-specific investments and has become a global centre of excellence for pharmaceutical research and development.

Analysis of the institutional landscape and proliferation of proposals for global vaccine equity for COVID-19: too many cooks or too many recipes?

This article outlines and compares current and proposed global institutional mechanisms to increase equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, focusing on their institutional and operational complementarities and overlaps. It specifically considers...

Maximizing the differentiation principle in regional IP treaties to advance food security: Limitations in West Africa's regional IP and trade regime

AbstractIn this article, I examine whether the contemporary regional intellectual property (IP) agreements negotiated by West African countries are more suitable than multilateral agreements to advance food security in the region, based on the provisions they make for applying the differentiation principle. In this paper, the term “West Africa” is used to designate the 15 countries that are members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the major regional organization in the area (The founding members of ECOWAS were: Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea‐Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania [left 2002], Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Burkina Faso [which joined as Upper Volta]. Cape Verde joined in 1977). By reviewing relevant literature and theories, I propose that the human right to development as a differentiating paradigm may be applied in IP regulation, without compromising the requirement of nondiscrimination in IP regimes. I argue that human rights linked to the food security should be differentiated from the proprietary rights granted in IP. After critical doctrinal analysis of West Africa's regional agreements related to IP rights and food security, I conclude that rather than maximising the adoption of the differentiation principle to advance the regions food security, these treaties are surprisingly less flexible than multilateral agreements, creating further challenges for food security in the region. Consequently, I propose an alternative regional framework for differentiation, that allows for differentiation between IP and human rights norms based on the instrumentalist approach to law, as being more suitable for advancing development and food security in West Africa.

The Dilemma of Intellectual Property Agreements and R&D in Developing Economies: A Game Theory Approach.

This paper models and predicts how the strengthening of intellectual property (IP) protection will impact R&D in developing economies. International agreements such as TRIPs and free trade agreements are enhancing the level of international control on IP. This is changing deeply the R&D environment in developing economies by restraining illegal channels of knowledge accumulation such as imitation, reverse engineering and piracy. An asymmetric and non-cooperative two-stage (R&D-Production) game is proposed to model a developing market where two local firms compete with a more innovative foreign firm. Equilibrium R&D expenditures and profits of the competing firms are compared for different levels of: market technology, technological gaps and IP protection. The proposed model shows clearly that a stringent enforcement of IP agreements will dramatically decrease the innovative abilities of developing economies especially in high technological sectors. The maintain and increase of their R&D skills will not be possible without a reduction of their technological gap and strong incentives to initiate regulatory (or permit tacit) R&D cooperation between local firms.

Blockchain and publishing: towards a publisher-centred distributed ledger for the book publishing industry

There is a small but growing volume of scholarly research and technological experiments in relation to blockchain and book publishing. However, to date, appropriate and feasible blockchain models for rights management and copyright exploitation remain largely untested. Furthermore, extant research has focussed on author-centred models of intellectual property and royalty management, with limited focus on publisher-centred models. Consequently, there are few practical prototypes and little understanding of blockchain models that are mutually beneficial for both writers and publishers. This article presents the findings of a two-year research project, No Point in Stopping, that explores a publisher-centred model of blockchain publishing that creates value for micro-publishers. The project developed a custom blockchain prototype and digital ledger to manage intellectual property agreements, royalty payments, and the tracking of both physical in-store and online purchases. The authors argue that for publishers, blockchain can create and monetise new digital publishing products from the drafting and editing process, thereby using intellectual property that would normally be an input into the publishing process rather than a commercial output. Blockchain can also create a new contract and revenue system that disrupts the current fee-for-service model by paying royalties to all creative professionals involved in this publishing process.

Щодо праворозуміння понять «недійсний договір» та «неукладений договір» у сфері інтелектуальної власності

У дослідженні здійснено аналіз понять «недійсний договір» та «неукладений договір» у сфері інтелектуальної власності, спираючись на чинне законодавство України та судову практику. З’ясовано істотні умови договорів у сфері інтелектуальної власності, розглянуто умови за якими договори щодо розпоряджання майновими правами інтелектуальної власності вважаються укладеними, а також дійсними. Запропоновано закріпити в Цивільному кодексі України істотні умови договорів, зокрема й у сфері інтелектуальної власності, та навести випадки, коли їх відсутність не впливає на укладеність договору, а також виділити умови дійсності договорів у сфері інтелектуальної власності.
 The study examined the concepts of “invalid agreement” and “not concluded an agreement” in intellectual property, based on current legislation of Ukraine and judicial practice. The essential terms of agreements on intellectual property are clarified, the conditions under which agreements on the disposal of intellectual property rights are considered concluded and valid. It is proposed to enshrine in the Civil Code of Ukraine the essential terms of agreements, including intellectual property agreements, and to cite cases where their absence does not affect the conclusion of the agreement, and to highlight the conditions of validity of agreements on intellectual property.

Using intellectual property agreements in the presence of supplier and third-party copycatting

When a manufacturer outsources the production of a product, it distributes its intellectual property (IP) into a supply chain that it may not be able to fully control. An IP agreement between a manufacturer and its suppliers is a popular solution to address the challenge of supplier-copycatting. The goal of this paper is to examine the impact of copycatting, from both the supplier and third-party firms, and the effectiveness of an IP agreement. Specifically, we use a game-theoretic approach to examine a system where a manufacturer outsources to a supplier. The supplier and a third-party firm decide whether or not to enter the market with copycat products while the manufacturer selects the level of marketing investment. The manufacturer can reduce the threat of supplier-copycatting by signing an IP agreement. However, we find that the manufacturer can be worse off from signing an IP agreement with its supplier, even if the IP agreement is costless and perfectly enforceable. We show that a manufacturer can deter copycat products through vertical integration and IP agreements and we outline the instances where each method is preferred. Furthermore, we find that the manufacturer may choose not to invest in quality improvements as a copycat deterrence strategy. We show that the supplier can benefit from the manufacturer's decision to sign an IP agreement and that the supplier and the consumers can benefit from IP regulations against copycat products. Our paper demonstrates the strengths and limitations of various copycat deterrence strategies when a supplier and third-party may produce copycat products.