Trading in Knowledge

Chapter 11

The World of Biotechnology Patents

Silvia Salazar

INTRODUCTION

During the past decade, the world economy has undergone profound changes. The new trend is towards a more globalized economy through the liberalization of markets and free trade agreements between countries and, above all, between trade blocks. Although the beginnings of the international intellectual property rights (IPR) regime predate these changes, discussion on the subject had been confined to specialists. In fact, intellectual property was of interest only to a small circle of people who had a direct interest in the regime, such as inventors, authors and lawyers. However, with the internationalization of the economy and the advent of free market agreements, the ...