This WTO working paper studies availability and affordability of new and innovative pharmaceuticals in a post-TRIPS era. The WTO's TRIPS Agreement (TRIPS) makes it obligatory for WTO members − except least-developed country members (LDCs) - to provide pharmaceutical product patents with a...

This paper examines the background of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement, the nature of this obligation on developed country Members that pertains to the promotion of technology transfer to LDC Members and how it is being implemented and how such implementation is being monitored in the TRIPS...

With the completion of the Uruguay Round of international trade negotiations, attention turns to plausible next steps. One question on the agenda of possibilities is the adoption of competition policies that complement or substitute for the remedies traditionally used to deal with international...

As the 20th Century dawned, there were radical divergences in the policies individual nations pursued toward restraints of competition by cartels and monopolies. Since World War II there has been considerable convergence as an increasing large number of nations have adopted explicit...

With the referral of the Kodak - Fuji market access dispute to the World Trade Organization, the role of retail distribution channel control by incumbent firms as a barrier to imports has drawn much interest. This paper reviews the issues from an historical perspective and analyzes the...

The research reported in this paper seeks to determine how skewed the distribution of profits from technological innovation is

During the past half century many nations have adopted policies whose function is to discourage cartels and other restrictive practices. Industrialized nations led the movement toward pro-competition policies, but more recently, developing nations have begun to join the parade. Initial steps...

Through a survey, economic value estimates were obtained on 962 inventions made in the United States and Germany and on which German patent renewal fees were paid to full-term expiration in 1995. A search of subsequent U.S. and German patents yielded a count of citations to those patents....

We explore the tail of patented invention value distributions by using value estimates obtained directly from patent holders. The paper focuses on those full-term German patents of the application year 1977 which were held by West German and U.S. residents. The most valuable patents in our data...

Through a survey, economic value estimates were obtained on 962 inventions made in the United States and Germany and on which German patent renewal fees were paid to full-term expiration in 1995. A search of subsequent U.S. and German patents yielded a count of citations to those patents....