James Glassman discusses the IP situation in Brazil. His conclusion:

As [Robert Shapiro, a former undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton Administration] writes, "Intellectual-property rights are not a form of foreign aid." Absolutely. We can't allow other nations to seize -- or extort our firms into giving up -- their IP assets.

Intellectual property -- in the form of drug formulas, software, business processes, entertainment, even handbag design -- is the foundation of our prosperity. To leave IP defenseless in nations like Brazil is to put America's future at risk.

Shapiro also wrote:

Modern economics, starting with Nobel Laureate Robert Solow in the 1950s, has established that a country’s growth rate depends vitally on the pace with which it develops or adopts economic innovations. In the case of the United States, for example, experts trace 30 percent to 40 percent of the productivity and growth gains achieved over the 20th century to economic innovation. The same relationship has held true in developing economies.

The World Bank reports that the greatest economic progress in recent decades was achieved by the developing nations of East Asia that welcomed foreign technologies and respected the intellectual-property rights of their developers. From 1980 to 2002, East Asian economies grew by an average of 7.4 percent a year.

Over the same period, the countries of Latin America, with more restrictive foreign-investment policies and lax intellectual-property protections, grew by less than 2.5 percent a year.

posted by James DeLong @ 9:04 AM | International

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