Some Key Findings
- Over recent years, the international IP environment has continued to strengthen, despite some negative developments resulting from certain governments’ responses to COVID-19.
- Trade agreements continue to substantively improve national IP frameworks.
- IP enabled the development of a pipeline of therapeutics solutions to combat COVID-19.
The COVID-19 pandemic upended life as we knew it. As global citizens adjusted to living through a global pandemic, intellectual property played an essential—if oftentimes underappreciated—role in the creation and development of technological and creative solutions.
Treatments and vaccines for coronavirus were developed in record time as a result of the scientific community’s ability to make high-risk, high-capital investments in R&D. As we adjusted to the way we work, teach, and connect with others, IP-enabled digital technologies allowed us to remain connected to one another, even if in isolation. And while many of us spent much of the year in quarantine, the development of new streaming services and creative content provided both a welcome escape and brought us together. Throughout the pandemic, transparent and predictable IP rights have also provided the legal and economic basis for an unprecedented level of highly successful collaborations between government, industry, academia, and non-governmental organizations.
In this context, being able to measure how equipped economies are to generate and safeguard innovation and creativity is more important than ever before. Now in its ninth edition, the International IP Index benchmarks the IP framework in 53 global economies across 50 unique indicators. An effective IP system, as outlined by the criteria evaluated in the Index, will be critical to rebuilding healthy communities, getting citizens back to work, and reinvigorating the global economy.
