Does TRIPS Art. 66.2 Encourage Technology Transfer To The LDC’s?: An Analysis Of Country Submissions To The TRIPS Council (1999-2007)
by Suerie Moon
Policy Brief No.2 Series • Policy Brief
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Does TRIPS Art. 66.2 Encourage Technology Transfer To The LDCs?: An Analysis Of Country Submissions To The TRIPS Council (1999-2007) PDF • 5.09 MBDeveloping countries, in general, see technology transfer as part of the bargain in which they agreed to strengthened intellectual property protection under the TRIPS Agreement. The TRIPS Agreement includes a number of specific provisions in this regard. Most notably, Article 66.2 requires developed countries to provide incentives for to enterprises and institutions in their territories for the purpose of promoting and encouraging technology transfer to LDCs in order to enable them to create a sound and viable technological.
In this policy brief, Suerie Moon (Harvard University) examines, based on country self-reports to the TRIPS Council from 1999-2007, whether the Article 66.2 obligation led developed countries to increase incentives to enterprises and institutions in their territories for the purpose of promoting and encouraging technology transfer to WTO LDC Members.
Her study underlines that the lack of definitional clarity regarding the terms “technology transfer” and “developed country” [1]in these reports makes it unclear which countries are obligated to do what. Furthermore, it points to the fact that many developed countries have never submitted a report, and among countries that did, submissions have largely been irregular. In addition, a majority of the programmes and policies reported do not specifically target LDCs and a significant proportion of programmes for LDCs do not actually target technology transfer. The author highlights that country reports do not provide sufficiently detailed data to determine whether Article 66.2 led to any additional incentives beyond business-as-usual foreign aid.
The poliy brief includes a number of recommendations to improve the reporting system under Article 66.2 The author suggests, for example, the use of a uniform reporting format that will be comparable across countries and time periods. She also proposes developing a “toolkit” for assessing best practices in both the reporting and functioning of incentives.
As the policy brief ultimately shows, significant work remains to be carried out in order to ensure an effective implementation of Article 66.2.
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Technological transfer can only occur where the developed country transfering such technology will realise some benefits of doing so. It is not just a charitable act to developing countries.
Thuseven where technological transfer occurs, it has to be ctitically anaysed, otherwise it will be nothing but either experimental technology or what I will tgerm “dumped Technology”