Intellectual Property Management: Policy Issues and Options
Intellectual Property Management: Policy Issues and Options (Genome Canada, 2011)
12 Pages Posted: 26 Sep 2015
Date Written: 2011
Abstract
Intellectual property rights, including copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and patents, play an important role in innovation systems. While the right intellectual property policies and practices cannot, by themselves, catalyze innovation – other factors are equally if not more important – the wrong policies and practices can impede it. The focus of public policy debates should shift from the relative strength or weakness of legislative protection to the most efficient and effective models of managing intellectual property in practice. Options for policymakers include (1) encouraging as much acquisition and commercialization of intellectual property rights as possible, (2) supporting the public domain through free revealing of knowledge and technology, and (3) leveraging intellectual property rights through collaborative or “open” licensing models. Different resources in different industries involving different collaborators and different intellectual property rights can be managed using a mixture of approaches. Because the policy options are not mutually exclusive, policymakers’ key role is not to choose among them but to articulate overarching principles that promote financial as well as non-financial returns on investments while taking into account the broad range of stakeholder needs.
Keywords: Intellectual Property Management, Public Policy
JEL Classification: O34
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation