Cato: Should Intellectual Property Be in Trade Agreements?

After I complained recently that arguments for including intellectual property (IP) in trade agreements needed to specify what level of protection is desirable, Tom Giovanetti responded by asking for my view on a more basic question: Should IP—regardless of the level of protection—be in trade agreements at all? My colleague Bill Watson has previously set out a political argument for removing it, which is that achieving free trade is becoming very difficult when IP issues get inserted into trade negotiations. Let me add to his argument the following: If IP is in, then there is really no boundary to what can be in, and the result is trade agreements that look like “global governance” agreements.

Returning to Tom’s question, I should say at the outset that Tom doesn’t really say explicitly why IP should be in trade agreements. He doesn’t explain how IP rules fit within the general concept of trade liberalization, or what scope he sees for trade agreements. What are his limits for what should be covered in trade agreements? I’m really not sure. Instead, the main focus of Tom’s argument for including IP in trade agreements seems to be that the United States exports lots of IP-related goods, and therefore it is in the nation’s interest to have IP rules in there.

Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/should-intellectual-property-be-trade-agreements