The area of intellectual property (IP) has become a critical component of international business in our globalized economy.
As trade and irvestment have expanded between countries, it is imperative that companies that have developed advanced technology can comfortably enter a new country without the threat of their technology or ideas being stolen and sold under a different source.
If the global community is not able to effectively protect this then certain countries with a higher prevalence of IP protection issues will not attract an optimal level of international irrvestment and could slow the ability to grow their economies, as well as limit international companies’ opportunities for new market growth.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) and WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) have provided a certain level of partnership among the WTO member countries in this area.
However, a main weakness in terms of effectiveness is that enforcement is the main tenet of IP law, therefore if these measures are not effectively enforced, then IP issues will persist in many parts of the world.
individual countries should apply pressure on each country to which they trade in order to protect the IP of their companies.
The WTO has 164 countries that are members, and WIPO have 189 invited members, thus the number of countries is so large that neither organization could be expected to promote specific IP items uniformly.
bribery is a serious issue in many countries around the world and can lead to IP laws being broken.
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