Page "Protectionism" Paragraph 10

# International patent systems: There is an argument for viewing national patent systems as a cloak for protectionist trade policies at a national level.

Two strands of this argument exist: one when patents held by one country form part of a system of exploitable relative advantage in trade negotiations against another, and a second where adhering to a worldwide system of patents confers " good citizenship " status despite ' de facto protectionism '.

Peter Drahos explains that " States realized that patent systems could be used to cloak protectionist strategies.

There were also reputational advantages for states to be seen to be sticking to intellectual property systems.

One could attend the various revisions of the Paris and Berne conventions, participate in the cosmopolitan moral dialogue about the need to protect the fruits of authorial labor and inventive genius ... knowing all the while that one's domestic intellectual property system was a handy protectionist weapon.