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What Are Intellectual Property Rights
Intellectual property rights (IP) are legal rights that protect creators’ inventions, creations, developments, etc. There are four types different types of IP: patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. IP can differ from country to country, so it is important to be aware of local IP laws and enforcement.
International Property Rights Index Rankings
The image associated with this blog post is a map of IP rights for each country. The lighter shades of blue are better scores while the dark shades of blue are worse scores on the index. The top 5 countries for IP rights according to the index are:
The U.S. is ranked 13th, and right above the U.S. is Austria and below is Canada. China is ranked 49th, and directly above China is Slovenia and below is Latvia. The link to the index’s rankings is here.
Recent News: WTO Council to Talk Intellectual Property Rights
The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) will meet virtually today. The TRIPS Council oversees the application of the TRIPS agreement, an international pact governing intellectual property-related trade. The council monitors WTO member compliance with the agreement. The meeting will involve micro-medium-sized companies, specifically in the green tech space. Small-medium-sized companies employ over 50% of the workforce in emerging countries, so this area is a large focus for the WTO.
Recent News: China's intellectual property rights protection improved to create a sound business environment
China’s President Xi has stressed strengthening intellectual property rights in China recently. He is open to working with other countries to “create an open, fair, equitable and non-discriminatory environment for scientific and technological progress.” In the past few years, China has amended IP laws including patent, copyright, trademark, and anti-monopoly laws. China has made substantial progress in improving its IP laws, but there is still a lot of room for improvement.
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