Fostering innovation in the developing world is a key to its economic growth and a more stable and secure global economy. The most recent evidence for strong patent and regulatory mechanisms was on view at the fourth annual Science and Technology in Society (STS) Forum in Japan, attended by more than 600 leading business executives, government leaders, Nobel laureates, scientists, policy makers and media leaders from 71 countries.
I was invited to this Davos-like conference by the former Japanese Finance Minister Koji Omi, who remains the leader of the Forum. While much of the discussion was about global warming and how to get the U.S. government more involved in working not only with other governments but also business, there was also a keen understanding that a global system to regulate intellectual property (IP) remains important to spur advances in developing countries.
It was further apparent that regulating IP internationally needs further help. For example, we in the developed countries are right to complain about counterfeiting, piracy, and the tension in health care as patents on medicines are often used excuses for access to treatment or simply ignored. For those in developing countries - where innovation is often an afterthought to economic progress and where incentives are sorely lacking - change is also needed. Indeed, many of us who participated in Kyoto understand that a solid IP system, with strong incentives and penalties, will encourage innovation and greater economic independence in the least developed countries.
Innovation and IP are not front burner issues in most developing countries. Besides the need for education and establishing clearer connections to the benefits of innovation and IP protections, some ideas we discussed to advance the issue include creating central innovation hubs at universities that would also reduce costs and barriers to entry for registration of innovative discoveries and processes; encourage more licensing; improving a fast track system for certain types of patents, and streamlining the system. And while business must certainly play an important role to commercialize innovation, there is a strong role for government to create strong and realistic incentives to get local buy-in into the global system as well as enforcing the law.
It was encouraging to see so much agreement from representatives of the private, public and NGO sectors. While the STS Forum will present its recommendations on a variety of issues to the G-8, we know that most of the progress will come on the ground, incrementally and only with strong private-public partnerships. Without a big carrot and the potential of a reliable enforcement stick, both innovation and all of us will be the big losers.