Intellectual Property, Dissemination of Innovation and Sustainable Development

We live in a knowledge economy. The production and dissemination of knowledge will be central to solving the problems of climate change and environmental sustainability, reducing global poverty and addressing other global problems. This article asks: do intellectual property rights - with their increasingly global reach further or hinder the production and dissemination of knowledge? Experience with genetically modified organisms shows that a model markedly different from the current one is more likely to bring wider social benefits, both in the short and the long run. Indeed, the current system may impede both innovation and dissemination. There are reforms in the intellectual property regime, and more broadly in the way we finance, organize and incentivize innovation, that would increase the pace of innovation and its utilization. The spread of the current dysfunctional system owes much to the evolution of intellectual property rights in the US - and the influence of particular special interests there.