Assessing reporting obligations under TRIPS Article 66.2

Författare

Hans Henrik Lidgard

Redaktör

Jeff Atik

Summary, in English

The reporting obligations under the TRIPS Agreement should provide a basis for discovering how the developed countries provide incentives to enterprises and institutions in their territories for the purpose of promoting and encouraging technology transfer and if these activities lead to concrete and helpful best industry practices. The obligations must be seen in their context. Other international activities also address technology transfer from developed to developing countries. UNCTAD has such activities on its agenda and the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change contain fairly far reaching language indicating that technology transfer is also a priority in fields unconnected to trade in goods. The CBD is still, more than 15 years after its execution, at a formation stage with some way to go before it can generate substantial technology transfer. The situation is similar for the environmental development under the Framework Convention. In any event, TRIPS is a good measuring tool as reporting has not been limited to intellectual property rights activities. Member countries in their Article 66.2 TRIPS reporting cover exchanges in any area or sector including health, biodiversity, climate and energy alike.

This Chapter summarizes the concrete results achieved in relation to technology transfer in the narrow sense, searching for best practices of how a developed country can provide incentives to its private industry to actively participate in transferring catch up, state-of-the-art technology. It is a descriptive empirical account, evaluating if reported technology transfer activities are substantial and sustainable or if they are merely reporting on technical assistance or even general development aid.

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