Canadian Intellectual Property: The Politics of Innovating Institutions and Interests

Defining and regulating 'intellectual property' is a growing industry for information brokers, economists, and the legal profession. While other authors have documented the intellectual property (IP) market and its laws (copyright, patents, trademarks, and licensing), Bruce Doern and Markus Sharaput are the first Canadian political scientists to make the leap from simple description to detailed analysis. The authors delve into the politics of big business and protectionism, lobbies in the healthcare industry, regional imbalances, equitable dissemination, and internal pressures.

Among the conclusions advanced by Doern and Sharaput is that the main impetus for change in Canada has come ultimately from American corporate and political forces seeking to strengthen IP protection at the expense of IP dissemination. The authors show that Canada initially resisted such pressures but ultimately adopted the American influence as being in Canada's interest in the new age of innovation. Intellectual property user and dissemination-oriented interests are emerging, which will likely change the politics of IP in the first decade of the next century. Future politics in Canada will indeed shift from its outmoded, limited propensity for micro-economic policy to a timely recognition of the importance of knowledge and innovation at century's end.