According to an article in the Intellectual Assets Magazine (IAM), Property Rights Alliance (PRA) released its International Property Rights Index (IPRI) Report for the year 2008, with rankings on protection for physical and intellectual property in 115 countries. In IP protection, among emerging economies, India ranks 47th along with Mauritania, with Brazil, China and Russia on 49th, 70th and 82nd positions respectively. Finland topped the rankings with Germany, UK and Japan occupying the next three slots; the US is ranked 10th. Reportedly, the rankings were arrived at using data supplied by 41 organisations of which some are IP-owning organisations based in the US raising questions about its skewed distribution. According to the article, this report indicates that IP protection gets a certain amount of priority only after a nation reaches a certain level of prosperity and strong IP protection by itself cannot help kick-start an economy. This observation seems balanced in the light of the discussion on relevance of IP protection.
As an addendum to this post, I would like to draw readers’ attention to the fact that one of main data sources for the IPRI report is the United States Trade Representative (USTR) – 301 Watch List, which SpicyIP had severely critiqued last year in this post: http://spicyipindia.blogspot.com/2007/06/ustr-special-301-report-2007-beyond_03.html
Perhaps, this is an opportunity to renew discussion on the holier-than-thou ethic the US is wont to flaunt.
Disclosure: While there is an argument for the more general institutional economics/North line of thinking, I am no defendant of de Soto’s property rights thesis (which the IPRI and its parent organisation – Property Rights Alliance – openly subscribe to). And rankings such as this merely serve to perpetrate such logic. It would be prudent to take such reports with several pinches of salt!
Hi Sumathi,
I concur with you on that count for the article too mentions the fact of a bias in the data which were supplied by INTA and IIPA. In fact, i was just going through the report to understand the methodology of analysis (pages 26-28) and i believe that a few factors could have been factored in it. However, doesnt it look odd that US is ranked below other European nations despite USTR supplying the information?
Perhaps the fact that the Bush government is desperately trying to stop the recent patent reform bill (in its current form, supported by the Democrats and viewed by the republicans and big pharma as being “anti patent”) might explain why the US is ranked below the EU. Just a guess….
This is entirely likely, Shamnad. The subjective angle to the ranking (based on opinion survey outcomes) is provided by the WEF’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) 2006-07 which has been used as a source for the IPRI. In that version of GCI, the US was in sixth place, below Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Singapore – all of which but one (Sweden) are above the US in the IPRI ranking. The game’s up?
Interestingly, in the newest 2007-08 edition of the GCI, the US is in top spot, which might have implications on the *next* version of the IPRI… 😉