Formulation of the Intellectual Property Policy for Bangladesh: Challenges and Prospects

Formulation of the Intellectual Property Policy for Bangladesh: Challenges and Prospects

- Khondoker Md. Nazmul Huda Shamim[i]

Introduction:

Protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) has become an issue of rising interest in both industrialized and developing countries (South). The controversies tend to center on the relatively new Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement of the Uruguay round of GATT, which has called for a standardization of IPR protection among all members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and potential new entrants. It requires developing countries to raise their intellectual property protection level to the standard in force in industrialized nations at the time of negotiation[ii]

It was mostly expected that the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) world trade and development scenario will be changed. After the adoption of TRIPS World Trade Organization (WTO), two major trends emerged: the vigilant monitoring and surveillance of TRIPS compliance by IP industry representatives and civil society’s increasingly mobilized opposition to important aspects of TRIPS[iii].

After the economic crisis of the early 1980s, developing countries adopted new policies regarding intellectual property protection only as a result of a coercive U.S. strategy, consistent with a neorealist explanation based on power. Targeted countries have complied only on paper, not in practice, however. In contrast, hegemonic powers have not employed overt coercion in the area of antitrust policy, consistent with interpretivist neoliberalism, which emphasizes learning and voluntarism. A nuanced analysis of power and ideas is necessary to account for the differences between the cases. The different mechanisms through which the new policies have been adopted suggest different prospects for these new policies[iv].

The last two decades have ushered in a dramatic change in the global environment for the protection...