Intellectual Property Rights

The International History of Intellectual Property

The first bilateral and multilateral intellectual property agreements were signed in the early and mid 19th century by European nations offering reciprocal recognition of authors’ rights to signatories. Although ideas and artistic works, like opera music, can be used simultaneously by many actors in many places, unlike “tangible” property like land, supporters maintained this difference did not preclude ideas from being considered private property, deserving of similar protections to other private property forms. Critics, including then-mainstream economists, argued that intellectual property created illegitimate monopolies [Page 916]that would halt the free flow of ideas and disrupt international trade. Despite this controversy, international intellectual property law emerged, as a result of pressures from industries, authors, and inventors seeking protection in foreign nations as international trade developed.

In 1884, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property was signed by Belgium, Brazil, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, and the United Kingdom; the convention required that member-nations mutually respect industrial property rights for inventions, trademarks, and industrial design. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works was concluded 2 years later, in 1886. The original signatories, many European nations but including Tunisia, agreed to reciprocal recognition of property rights for literary works, including novels, musical works, and other artistic works, including sculpture and architecture.

By 1886, there were more than 100 multilateral intellectual property agreements worldwide. Although such agreements lacked any international enforcement mechanism, the Paris and Berne conventions established international administrative offices, which merged in 1893. In 1970, this office became the World Intellectual Property Organization, now a specialized UN agency promoting intellectual property and the public interest.

Despite these institutional developments, worldwide intellectual property laws remained uneven for most of the 20th century. The United States entered into a reciprocal authors’ agreement with European countries in 1907, often recognizing foreign authors’ rights only if their works were manufactured in the United States, a decades-old concession to the domestic publishing industry. Britain partially suspended compliance with the Paris and Berne conventions during the interwar years, to revitalize domestic chemical and other industries. Until the 1990s, both China and Russia opposed intellectual property as an extension of capitalist private property relationships. In the 1960s and 1970s, many developing states refused to acknowledge intellectual property protections because they were concerned about the domestic provision of affordable food, medicine, and agricultural products. Until the 1990s, more than 50 nations specifically exempted pharmaceuticals from intellectual property protections to facilitate the manufacture of inexpensive medications as part of a general development strategy based on support for domestic industry and agriculture.

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