This article evaluates the long-standing argument that Australian R&D levels are low because of the restrictions imposed by scale economies in production. In so doing, it is assumed that there are no intrinsic advantages or disadvantages to the integration of research and production activities...

Intellectual properly right (IPR) protection provides incentives for innovation and consequent spillover benefits for the global economy, but it may also have anti-competitive effects. Economic theory has only recently addressed the international trade flow implications of different IPR...

Increasingly, international trade law demands that national competition policy play a role making domestic markets more accessible to foreign traders. But can international competition policy also control transnational business practices? New international intellectual property power is...

In Australia, as in many other countries, education is increasingly thought of in terms of trade. Given that copyright law has long functioned as a trade regulation device, it may be reasonable to expect that consideration would be given to the role that copyright may play in regulating the...

Collective enforcement of copyright law is an increasingly important element in copyright-based industries. This article suggests that collective enforcement creates two forces: increased compliance with copyright laws; and a tendency for copyright collecting societies to act as monopolists. The...

This article considers how copyright serves concepts of culture and development. It suggests that copyright's role in relation to culture is best characterised as instrumental rather than fundamental. An indicator of this instrumental approach is the commodification of the copyright interest....

While Japanese broadcasters and manufacturers have been world pioneers in the development of high-definition television and digital production technologies, they have been slow to design a national system for digital television (DTV) transmission. Present plans call for the launching of a new...

The decision of the FCC in the United States to select an all-digital HDTV system was a surprise to HDTV supporters in Europe and Japan. Both had adopted hybrid systems with both analog and digital features. Western Europe was quicker than Japan to move away from its previous arrangements. It...

Irwin's 'Citizen Science' and Sclove's 'Technology and Democracy' represent two important recent attempts, from different precincts of the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), to explore the democratization of science and technology. Irwin suggests that policies for democratizing...

As the global economy becomes more knowledge intensive and the wealth of nations more dependent on their knowledge assets being harnessed, it is essential for policy makers to have frameworks for the development and utilisation of national knowledge assets. This article argues that a policy...