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When is international patent law cooperation and harmonization welfare-enhancing? What is the role of international institutions - WIPO and the WTO - in furthering such harmonization? This book explores these questions from a global welfarist, rationalist perspective. It grounds its analysis in innovation theory and a examination of patent law and prosecution, incorporating the uncertainty of patent law's impact on welfare at a detailed level, dynamic changes, the skewed nature of patent value and the difficulty of textually capturing patent concepts. Using tools from new institutional economics, it explores future design implications for international institutions, analyzing grounds for international cooperation as collective action problems and applying historical, political and transaction cost analyses.

Academics, students and practitioners interested in international economic law, specifically in respect of patents, innovation and intellectual property, the TRIPs Agreement, the WTO and WIPO will find this book essential. It will also prove insightful for researchers whose primary background is in international relations or international political economy, but are seeking an introduction to the patent and intellectual property field.

Contents:
Introduction
Part I: Welfare-Enhancing Harmonization
1. Domestic Patent Law, Autarchic Analysis
2. The Value of Diversity: Relaxed Autarchy
3. Bases for Harmonization
Part II: International Patent Law Institutions
4. History
5. International Patent Cooperation as Collective Action
6. Institutional Analysis: WIPO and the WTO
Conclusions and Implications
References