ECIPE Conference: Trade and Intellectual Property Rights: A Narrative and Agenda for Europe

Europe’s economy has changed profile in the past decades – and will hopefully do so even more in the decades to come. Knowledge-based sectors and output have become central to economic expansion. An increasing share of trade and growth comes from innovation and investments in research and development (R&D). But competition between countries over attracting investments in future sectors has increased too, and multinational firms have diversified their R&D portfolios to such a degree that they can move if overall regulatory conditions are not good enough. 

Appropriate protection of intellectual property, and efforts to enforce such protection in other countries, are key elements of the regulatory infrastructure. But is Europe designing its policy in a way that will maintain the strength and integrity of IPRs – and are authorities making the right priorities about what issues and sectors that deserve action? Certainly, debates over IPR policy have become politically charged, and calls on IPR reforms are increasingly often intended to achieve objectives far away from the purpose of IPRs. And the chief purpose – stimulating innovation – is invariably neglected. It is high time to re-focus the European IPR debate to the core issue: how should protection of intellectual property be designed to foster innovation and positive economic change in the EU?

Programme

14:10 Welcome

14:15 KEYNOTE: Ewa Björling, Minister for Trade, Sweden

14:45 PANEL I: IPRs: A modern narrative to guide policy/priorities

Oliver Varhelyi, DG Internal Market, European Commission (tbc)

Douglas Lippoldt, Sciences Po

Fredrik Erixon, Director, ECIPE 

16:00 Coffee/Tea

16:15 Panel II: The role of IPRs in trade policy

Pedro Velasco Martins, DG Trade 

Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, Director, ECIPE 

Boris Azaïs, Director of Industrial Policy Europe and Canada, MSD

17:30 End note