Global Change and Intellectual Property Agencies

Book excerpt: Global change affects all areas of public policy and crucial aspects of governing institutions. National and international intellectual property (IP) agencies are increasingly at the fulcrum of such change but are among the least well-examined of governing and policy realms. Among the oldest agencies of government, they are moving from a long era of contented obscurity to that of increasing political and economic exposure and controversy.This is the first book to examine IP agencies in the context of this transformation. Taking a basic institutional perspective, the book examines the changes in and relationships among four national and international IP agencies: the patent offices of the US, UK, Canada and Australia; the World Intellectual Property Office, the European Patent Office and the World Trade Organization. Focusing on the 1990s, the book traces institutional changes that centre on the core trade-off in intellectual property policy between protection and dissemination of intellectual property. These are examined in relation to the two broad dusters of interests that operate around the protection versus dissemination functions. The former is dominated by big business and the IP professions and the latter by much more dispersed and emerging interests.