LegiStorm

Summary:

This report provides background on intellectual property rights (IPR) and discusses the role of U.S. international trade policy in enhancing IPR protection and enforcement abroad. IPR are legal rights granted by governments to encourage innovation and creative output by ensuring that creators reap the benefits of their inventions or works. They may take forms such as patents, trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks, or geographical indications. Congress has constitutional responsibility for legislating and overseeing IPR and international trade policy. Responsibility for developing IPR policy, engaging in IPR-related international negotiations, and enforcing IPR laws cuts across multiple U.S. government agencies. The protection and enforcement of IPR is an important and longstanding component of U.S. international trade policy and U.S. trade negotiating objectives. U.S. trade policy also seeks to address new and evolving issues in the IPR landscape related to the growing role of emerging markets in the global market place and the increased level of digital trade. Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the 1995 World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) at the, trade policy has been used to advance IPR rules internationally. The TRIPS Agreement set minimum standards for IPR protection and enforcement. The United States engages in efforts with other trading partners to build on the TRIPS Agreement, particularly through the negotiation of regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). To date, the United States has entered into 14 FTAs with 20 countries, which generally include IPR commitments exceeding obligations under the TRIPS Agreement ("TRIPS-plus"). IPR issues are prominent in the ongoing U.S. FTA negotiations of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). On June 29, 2015, President Obama signed the Bipartisan Trade Promotion and Accountability Act (P.L. 114-26), known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), setting forth negotiating objectives on IPR. Many of these objectives are to seek to negotiate TRIPS-plus provisions in U.S. FTAs. Other trade policy tools also are available to advance U.S. international IPR objectives. Pursuant to Section 182 of the Trade Act of 1974 as amended (P.L. 93-618), the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) identifies countries providing inadequate IPR protection in its annual "Special 301" report. Section 337 of the amended Tariff Act of 1930 authorizes the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to prohibit U.S. imports that infringe on U.S. IPR. Additionally, under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), the United States may consider a developing country's IPR policies and practices as a basis for offering or suspending preferential duty-free entry to certain products from the country. IPR issues related to international trade policy may figure prominently in the 114th congressional agenda. Congress may: examine the role of IPR in U.S. trade policy, including the implications of IPR trade negotiating objectives in Trade Promotion Authority (TPA); conduct oversight of implementation of the IPR commitments in existing trade agreements, as well as in the current U.S. trade negotiations on TPP and T-TIP; conduct oversight of the role of IPR in U.S. economic growth and innovation, and how the protection and enforcement of IPR relates to other public policy goals, such as access to medicines in poor or developing countries and the free flow of data; consider the possibility of additional policy options to address IPR concerns in emerging economies that are not a part of existing U.S. FTAs or included in current U.S. FTA negotiations, as well as new and evolving IPR issues, such as with respect to indigenous innovation, "forced" localization barriers to trade, and trade secret theft through cybercrime; and examine the effectiveness of the current U.S. coordinating structure and the adequacy of current federal resources for promoting international IPR support.