Article on IP protection on TechNewsWorld

In an example of fortuitous timing, giving the debate this afternoon and tomorrow morning at WIPO on the "development agenda," I've just had an op/ed published on TechNewsWorld on this very topic.

Here's the link to the entire article.

An excerpt:

But the development agenda effort has already succeeded, because it has begun to undermine the international order's confidence in the importance of IP. IP is bashed at every opportunity through assertions that strong IP protection "enslaves people" and "results in death and destruction." You would think that IP protection is the main reason for disparities between rich and poor, and that elimination of IP protection will result in a Utopia where access to medicines, software, books and recorded entertainment will be free and abundant -- a magical world where people will continue to work and create without the prospect of profiting from their work or having any control over its distribution.

We recognize this for what it is: that same old impulse which has at various times and in various places led to socialism and communism. But this debate is being held in front of delegations from nations whose grasp of property rights and market-based economies is tenuous at best, and which are not immune to such utopian delusions. This anti-IP campaign is having an effect, and unless this campaign against IP is actively opposed, the U.S. economy has much to lose.

Today, the comparative advantage of the U.S. isn't cheap labor or natural resources. Our comparative advantage is our creativity -- our ability to innovate new products and services that the rest of the world wants and is willing to pay for.