The United States urges that, in formulating policies to promote innovation, trading partners, including India and China, take account of the increasingly cross-border nature of commercial research and development, and of the importance of voluntary and mutually agreed commercial partnerships.
Intellectual Property and the Environment
Strong IPR protection is vital for development, and is critical to responding to environmental challenges, including climate change. IPR protection is essential to facilitate access to today's technologies, and to promote tomorrow's innovation. IPR provides incentives to invest in green technologies, and can promote economic growth and create jobs in the green technology sector. Without such incentives, businesses are reluctant to invest or enter into technology transfer arrangements in countries that lack effective IPR protection and enforcement. IPR is also an important driver of university research in the green technology sector. In the absence of such technologies, society may be deprived of critical advances to meet environmental challenges, including the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.
Certain national policies and practices advanced domestically and in multilateral fora may have the unintended effect of undermining national and global efforts to address serious environmental challenges. For example, India's National Manufacturing Policy promotes the compulsory licensing of patented technologies as a means of effectuating technology transfer with respect to green technologies. India has pressed to multilateralize this approach to green technologies through its proposals in the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These actions will discourage rather than promote the investment in, and dissemination of, green technologies, including those technologies that contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation.
The United States continues to work to ensure robust IP protection and enforcement, which gives inventors and creators the confidence to: engage in foreign direct investment, joint ventures, local partnerships, and licensing arrangements; collaborate with foreign counterparts; to open research facilities in markets abroad; establish local operations and work with local manufacturers and suppliers; create jobs, including local worker training; and invest in infrastructure for the production, adoption, and delivery of green technology goods and services, without fear of misappropriation of their IPR. Strong IPR protection is, therefore, not only critical to the objective of addressing environmental challenges and developing a global response to climate change, but to national economic growth. The United States promotes strong IPR protection and enforcement as an environmental as well as an economic imperative, providing critical developmental benefits for developing and least-developed countries in particular.
Trends in Trademark Counterfeiting and Copyright Piracy
The problems of trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy continue on a global scale and involve mass production and sales of a vast array of fake goods, including counterfeit semiconductors, medicines, health care products, food and beverages, automobile parts, such as air bags, aircraft parts, apparel and footwear, toothpaste, toys, shampoos, razors, electronics, batteries, chemicals, sporting goods, motion pictures, and music.
18
