BSDS 207: PART B ASSING 2

Critically analyse the impact of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), Trade Related Investment
Measures (TRIMS), and Trade related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) to technology
transfer and development.

(IPRs) are good for innovation and technological development in the long run as opposed to
weaker IPRs, especially for those who have capacity to invest in R and D. patents and
copyrights confer property rights to new innovations. The protection of IPRs is therefore
frame work is put in place at national regional and international level. The international IPR
frame work put in place by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the form of TRIMs and
TRIPs have been viewed as mostly beneficial to developed and already industrialized
countries and costly to developing countries that are lagging behind in economic growth and
technological advancement.

(TRIMS) The WTO Agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures is a set of rules that
apply to the domestic regulations a country applies to foreign investors often as part of an
industrial policy. These rules restrict preference of domestic firms and thereby enable
international firms to operate more easily within foreign markets. (Havrlyshyn, and Alikhani,
(1989) they both thinking that the policies that many countries maintain respecting
investment are distortionary and that by removing distortions, free trade will lead to the
efficient allocation of resources.

(TRIPS) intellectual property is one of most controversial areas covered by World Trade
organisation is an international agreement administered by the World Trade Organisation
(WTO) that sets down minimum standards for more forms of intellectual property (IP)
regulation. It is supposed to be an attempt to narrow the discrepancy in ways these rights are
protected in different countries around the world and to bring them under common
international rules.

It establishes minimum levels of protection that each government has to give to the
intellectual property of fellow WTO members. It was negotiated at the end of Uruguay round
of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1994. National governments are
allowed to reduce any short term costs through various exceptions, for example to tackle
critical time- sensitive public health problems. Under TRIPs all signatories are required to
implement standard patent and copyright protection procedures.
Introduction:

International trade has emerged as serious problems in patterns between societies. Increasing
most of need to regulate trade at the global scale, the international community through the
general Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and later the (WTO) has makes everything
a number of mechanisms to ensure that everything is in good condition. The writer requires
considering the positive and negative impacts of TRIMS and TRIPS.

There are negative and positive impacts of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), Trade Related
Investment Measures (TRIMS), and Trade Related Aspects of intellectual property (TRIPS)
to technology transfer and development. The negative impacts, the TRIPs agreement limits
the scope for domestic firms to copy and imitate technologies that they need to being
educated as a take off point for further capacity building. The developmental role and
subsequent fate of national pharmaceutical industries under the TRIPs agreement provides a
particularly clear example of the way in which TRIPS limits the ability of countries to
increase their high technology and research capacity.

In addition, TRIPS agreement countries used weak intellectual property protection to produce
cheap generic drugs for their domestic markets. Producing generic drugs was successful both
for public health reasons and as a means of building up domestic pharmaceutical industries.
For example, to obtain the manufacturing experience and research skills necessary to imitate
progressively more sophiscated pharmaceutical products, including the AIDS cocktail. The
acceptance of TRIPs meant that Brazil was expected to honour patents for drugs that were not
yet licensed for generic production (Hill, 2000).

This created a problem for the Brazilian government policy of providing the AIDS free to its
citizens. This was an option because the government had been able to produce the drugs
domestically in a cheaper generic form. When TRIPs was implemented, this became
prohibitively expensive. Many pharmaceutical firms in developing countries simply shut
down when the TRIPs agreement was implemented. The TRIPs agreement has a limiting
effect on domestic firms in the latecomer countries.

Prices of goods that carry IP rights invariably enjoy astronomical margins of profit over the
production cost. This high margin is rationalized by the claim that most of cost of new
medicines and other high technology products lie in the amount of invention, innovation,
research, design and testing involved not production cost. This had been benefited MNC and
their countries of origin.

Moreover, according to Schumpeter (1930) argued that, technology is a resource for

economic development. It is one of the productive forces that enable manipulation of nature
to stimulate economic growth development and meet basic human needs and purposes,
thereby improving the standard of living to people. He also described innovation and new
technologies as a creative distraction waves that restructure the whole market and economy in
favour of new levels of economic development.

Schumpeter again described a process where the opening up of new market, foreign or
domestic, new product and services development, new tools, equipment, methods of
organising production management practices, process and others revolutionizes the economic
structure of nations from within continuously destroying the old ones and creating a new
methods that quantitatively and quantitatively better making human progress in all spheres of
life possible.

Furthermore, Schumpeter described a process where the opening up of new markets, foreign
or domestic and the organisational development through which the process of industrial
mutation, that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within incessantly
destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. He closely linked, then it can be
argued that the level of economic development of a country to invest in Rand D to develop
innovations and technologies on sustained manner.

Some developed countries, like big companies control the global markets, have market power
and therefore capacity to invest in Rand D compared to smaller Less Developed Countries.
The developed countries cause endogenous learning to the developing countries if they have
been registered all their patterns they go to the developing countries to look for markets by
uses them, but not helping them with new technologies. The creation of gap between
developed and developing countries has been causes conflicts among them.

TRIPs are not contributing more in developing countries as they do in developed nation, in
developed nations they have enough capacity in new innovation and technologies because
they have enough money to do Rand D (Research and Development). Technological
underdevelopment in many countries is traceable to the historical legacy of Western
imperialism; TRIPs can be viewed as condoning hidden trade restricting tariffs imposed on
the world by the technologically advanced economies to perpetuate cultural imperialism.

Much of the revenue from IP rights goes to middleman organisations rather than original
creators, weakening the argument that its protection encourages invention. For example films
music recordings, books, computer software and online services are bought because of the
information and creativity they contain not because of the plastic, metal or paper used to
make them. The cost of material and printing is a miniscule part of the price of these
products. The bulk of the price goes to pay for advertising, distribution and only finally fees
for licensing IP rights of the creators.

TRIMS are built on saps also putting barriers on international trade that may affect the MNCs
companies to get inside for developing countries like Zimbabwe. The government where
doing privatisation to implement the barriers that may block the MNCs companies to come
and assist with capital through SAPS.

However, the government of Zimbabwe should come with SAPs to do economic

liberalisation such that they should open a way from MNCs to get that’s deregulation of their
rules and put away the barriers of trade in developing countries. Investment in research and
development by MNCs limited only to areas of interest to MNCs companies. Financial and
technological prowess of MNCs may push out local companies leading to heir closure and
incapacity to drive local technological development and innovation.

According to cantwell (1989, 2000) and Duning (1977, 1980) posits that TRIPS are at
developed countries not at developing countries at global level. For instance China, South
Korea and Taiwan use to copy their style and reed their own industries. Cantwell put forward
a dynamic involuntary approach to the growth of MNC based on innovation and
technological accumulation. His model is the result of detailed empirical study of innovation
activities in the manufacturing sector of developed countries.

Also John Dunning (2000) is on TRIPS based on developed countries a pioneer in the on
activities of foreign companies. He used his expertise and knowledge of the field to develop
the theory or systematic theory. His strategy was tried to explain the whole range of activities
by MNC. When the location advantages favour production in the home country of the MNC,
international activities will take the form of exporting.
The TRIPS have caused poor working conditions and salaries may impact the capacity of
local citizens to afford adoption of technologies due to high levels of poverty.

The London (BBC News) block Covid vaccine plans for developing nations. Wealthy
countries, including the UK are blocking proposals to help developing nations to increase
their vaccine manufacturing capabilities, documents licked to BBC news. Several poorer
countries have asked the World Health Organization to help them. The richer nations are
pushing back on provisions in international law that would enable them to achieve this. This
is also bad for developing nations to look down upon each other.

However, there some positive impacts on TRIMS and TRIPs to technology transfer and
development. Compulsory licencing helps in protecting intellectual property and ensuring the
innovator benefits through economic returns. Many products that may use to be traded as low
tech goods or basic commodities now contain a higher proportion of invention and design in
their value, for example brand name clothing and genetically modified new varieties of plants
and produce.

Creators are given the right to prevent others from using their innovations, designs or other
creators and to demand payment in return for others using them. These intellectual property
rights take a number of forms. For instance books painting and films come under copyright,
inventions can be patented brand names and products logs can be registered as trademarks
and others. Governments have given creators these rights as incentives for producing ideas
that will benefit community as a whole.

TRIPS and TRIMS are beneficial to international investors. A recent preliminary analysis of
extended patent protection in Brazilian legislation and the implementation of the
implementation of the TRIPs agreement have been multinational companies’ not Brazilian
firms (Epsztein, 1998). Trims are associated with all the benefits of MNCs in developing
countries. The extent of protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights varies
widely around the world according to varying stages of economic development in different
countries.

As intellectual property became more important in trade, these differences became a source
of tension in international economic relations. New internationally agreed trade rules for
intellectual property rights are supposed to be a way to introduce more order and
predictability, and for disputes to be settled more systematically before they translate into
political tensions. But they can also be viewed as new form of rule based knowledge
imperialism. There exists inherent inconsistency and conflict of interest for an industrial
standard to claim protection of intellectual property rights because the condition for being
accepted as industry standard is that all in the industry can use it freely. An industry standard
that demands payment of fees for its use is a monopoly.

The argument that protection of intellectual property rights is indispensable for economic
growth has no basis in history. The socio economic and political history of United States was
shaped by the widespread piracy of a simple pattern helped by Eli Whitney (1765_1825) on
the cotton gin, the widespread use of which had immense socio economic and political
repercussions.

Little cotton had been produced in America prior to 1793. During the colonial period, the
main crop was tobacco, but tobacco farming had ceased to be profitable as a result of soil
exhaustion. The tedious process of separating short cotton fibre from the seeds had to be done
by hand and took much time to be profitable even in a slave economy.

The added advantage of TRIMS and TRIPS is on the investment in education facilitates
diffusion and transmission of knowledge, accelerate receptively to new technology in
economic development. It also brings competition (intensity of completion a key detriment of
innovation and productivity to people in developing nations to able to technology transfer and
development.

Other positive impacts on technical skills development programme for staff, financing
tertiary students and investment in education infrastructure such as schools, clinic and roads.
Moreover India and South Africa proposed waiver of the TRIPS to facilitate vaccines
manufacturing, to assist people in developing countries especially in health sector.

In conclusion, the TRIPS and TRIMS are benefiting more in developed countries than in
developing nations, even though they both benefiting but they are not the same. Many
obstacles are coming from developing countries because of imbalances that are continuing
taking place between TRIPS and TRIMS.
References:

Amsden. A (2000) do foreign companies conduct R and D in developing countries.

Cantwell (1989-2000) posits that TRIMS are benefited on developed countries not
developing countries at global level.

Coe D. Helpman (1997) North South Rand D spillover.

Dunning (2000) he is on TRIPS based on developed countries a pioneer in the activities of

foreign companies.

Eli Whiteny (1765-1825) a widespread piracy of a simple pattern.

(Epsztein, 1998) TRIPS agreement has been Multinational Corporation not Brazilian firms.

GATT (1994) negotiated at Uruguay round of the general agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Havrylyshyn and Alikhani (1989) both thinking that policies maintain respecting investment
and free trade will lead.

Hill (2000) the acceptance of TRIPS meant that Brazil was expected for drugs that we were
not licensed.

Schumpter (1930) argued that technology is a research for economic growth.