Transformation of the Global Intellectual Property Regime

• In Event: Poster Session: Experimental Research & Qualitative and Multi-Method Research
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Qualitative and Multi-Method Research

Abstract

Global rulemaking for intellectual property protection is now characterized by seemingly contesting developments that puzzle both policy-makers and scholars. It is possible to delineate two divergent interpretations with regard to the contemporary developments in intellectual property regulations worldwide.
The first interpretation highlights the efforts towards stricter intellectual property protection, as reflected in the efforts to pass the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in July 2012, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership since 2013, TPP since 2008, and intellectual property protection sections of other trade agreements. These incidents are seen as reflections of the fact that the global intellectual property regime is headed towards a stronger protection level (Roffe and Seuba 2014; Halbert 2014, Sell 2010, Drahos 2010, Deere 2009). Others say that we are witnessing a paradigm shift towards weaker intellectual property standards worldwide in favor of easier access to knowledge and greater policy flexibility (Morin 2014, Yu 2014, David and Halbert 2014, Muzaka 2013, Sell 2013, Krikorian and Kapczynski 2010, Morin and Gold 2010, Helfer 2009. ). This second perspective emphasizes the developments such as the 2005 Amendment of the TRIPS Agreement, the adoption of the WIPO Development Agenda, the Marrakesh Treaty, defeating the Stop Online Piracy Act in the United States Congress, rejection of ACTA by the European Parliament, rising international activism as seen in the case of pirate parties, the international advocacy towards flexible intellectual property protection such as exceptions for libraries, universities, and museums, and digital movements such as fair music trade.
Neither of these interpretations captures the complexity and the direction of the ongoing transformation because they fail to give satisfactory answers to the following questions: Why did the initial design of a universal and one-size-fits-all framework for the global intellectual property regime which was initiated under the auspices of the World Trade Organization within the framework of the TRIPS Agreement in 1995 not prevail? Why are we witnessing a plurality of intellectual property regimes despite the strong policies of homogenization? How can we account for the co-existence of these counter-trends? What are the repercussions of these two contradictory trends for the global intellectual property regime? Do these divergent developments indicate a tension between actors and their competing agendas? Questions derived from the contemporary snapshots of this regime point to the need to analyze the constituent elements of the global network that continuously defines and recasts the notion of ‘intellectual property’ and regulations thereof on a dynamic basis.
I argue that the global intellectual property regime is currently under a transformation from a homogenous and universalistic structure of the mid-1990s into a fragmented architecture of regimes. To investigate the dynamics of this transformation, I explore the relationships among the changes in the conceptualizations, the social dynamics of norm making, and the ways in which business makes use of intellectual property at the global level. My research suggests that fragmentation of this global regime is not only an outcome of the policies of the opposing forces, but now the forces that initially pushed for global protection of their intellectual property also favor plurality and variety of different regulations.
Through a mixed-method approach that contextualizes qualitative field research with quantitative data, I investigate the dynamics of fragmentation alongside multiple vectors. I define the globalization of these rights as a process of reification of the intellect that differentiates between the intangible and tangible manifestations of knowledge. An amalgam of Rousseau’s and Marx’s views on property helps to explain the widespread social justification of intellectual property rights.
I define the globalization of a standardized protection regime essentially as the rent seeking process by the transnational corporations to extract of part of the surplus value. The conditions of the expansion of information rent at a global level was made possible by the transformations of dominant business models under the dynamics of outsourcing and changing global division of labor. However, the homogenous protection regime was designed with the mindset of Fordist mass production that aimed to pertain to the profits through intellectual property while sending the production abroad. Once the rules of this monolithic regime were set in place, the peculiar interactions along the new organization of global production through the global value chains brought about an environment of fragmentation. Against this backdrop, the forces that initially pushed for homogenization favored fragmentation.

Author

• Nazan Bedirhanoglu, Binghamton University