Enforcement, Economics and Estimates

This Paper focuses on intellectual property enforcement, a topic that is of great importance to both developed and less developed countries. It begins by refuting the simple, and often politically motivated, claim that many countries fail to provide effective intellectual property enforcement by virtue of their lack of political will. Drawing on the latest economic literature, this Paper shows that high enforcement standards come with a hefty price tag and difficult trade-offs. The Paper then outlines the challenges in measuring the crossborder economic impact of piracy and counterfeiting. As an illustration, the Paper discusses the ongoing effort by the U.S. International Trade Commission to measure the economic impact of intellectual property infringement in China on the U.S. economy. The Paper concludes with an analysis of the various metrics that can be or have been used to develop cross-country comparative analyses. It highlights the continuous disagreement across nations over what metrics should be used. It also suggests new areas researchers can explore in their continuous search for a set of mutually satisfactory metrics that advance the international intellectual property enforcement debate. This Paper draws on the author’s testimony in the public hearing before the U.S. International Trade Commission on “China: Intellectual Property Infringement, Indigenous Innovation Policies, and Frameworks for Measuring the Effects on the U.S. Economy” on June 15, 2010. The Paper was published in the second special issue of The WIPO Journal, which focuses on the economics of intellectual property. The journal is published by the World Intellectual Property Organization in association with Sweet & Maxwell. The editor currently serves as the journal’s general editor. The spellings in the essay have been Americanized, and the present version omits all the footnotes in the original work. * Copyright © 2010 Peter K. Yu.