Patent Policy

Abstract

Increasingly national governments have sought to use industrial property protection, including patents, as part of a wider industrial and technological strategy for their industries. In particular, patents have been used by national governments to help increase the profitability of key high technology industries and to obtain more complete and better integrated technologies in order to facilitate the international competitive position of their firms.¹ The establishment of an effective system of industrial property rights and protection is therefore seen as essential for the long-term competitive survival of modern industrial economies.² More specifically, patents encourage ingenuity and invention, offer the prospect of considerable profit for developing a discovery through to its commercialisation, and increase the inducement to invest capital in finding, manufacturing and marketing new products. Finally, because patents require disclosure, new ideas are made available to the wider research and industrial community and thus competition is encouraged.³