On August 14,
President Trump issued a memorandum
instructing the United States Trade Representative to consider investigating
China’s policies and practices relating to IP theft and forced technology
transfers. U.S. Trade Representative Robert
Lighthizer promptly opened its investigation pursuant to the Trade Act of 1974.
Its notice of the initiation of the investigation of China’s practices relating
to IP has now
been published in the Federal
Register.
Among those
applauding the opening of the investigation was is the bipartisan IP
Commission, which issued a 2017 report update that spotlighted $225 billion
in annual costs to the American economy from international IP theft. Concerns
about IP theft in China were of FSF Research Associate Michael J. Horney
discussed that update in his blog post: “New
IP Commission Report Shows Need for Strong IP Enforcement Efforts.”
In the Digital
Age, combating international theft and piracy of American intellectual property
(IP) has become increasingly important to enhancing our nation’s economic
prosperity. Securing American IP rights
abroad is also a constitutional imperative. FSF President Randolph J. May and I
explore the philosophical and historical aspects of that imperative in our Perspectives from FSF Scholars paper “The
Logic of International Intellectual Property Protection.”
Posts
