Another troubling trend involving trade secrets and other IPR is an increasing tendency of governments to adopt trade-distortive policies, which are sometimes designed to promote "indigenous innovation." These policies include:
- Requiring the transfer of technology as a condition for allowing access to a market, or for allowing a company to continue to do business in the market.
- Directing state-owned enterprises in innovative sectors to seek non-commercial terms from their foreign business partners, including with respect to the acquisition and licensing of IPR.
- Failing to effectively enforce IPR, including patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and copyrights, thereby allowing firms to gain competitive advantages from their misappropriation or infringement of another's IPR.
- Failing to take meaningful measures to prevent or deter cyber-espionage.
- Requiring use of, or providing preferences to, products or services in which IPR is either developed or owned locally, including with respect to government procurement.
- Manipulating the standards development process to create unfair advantages for domestic firms, including with respect to the terms on which IPR is licensed.
- Requiring unnecessary disclosure of confidential business information for regulatory approval, or failing to protect that information.
The United States urges its trading partners to reject such policies. Further, the United States urges that, in adopting innovation and other policies, trading partners take account of the increasingly cross-border nature of commercial research and development, and of the importance of voluntary and mutually agreed-upon commercial partnerships.
The United States notes in this context that strong IPR protection can provide incentives for the voluntary transfer of critical green goods and services, and can promote economic growth and create jobs, particularly in developing and least-developed countries that need these benefits most. IPR protection is essential to facilitate access to and transfer of today's environmental technologies, and to promote tomorrow's innovation. Without IPR, many of the technologies on which we rely today and will rely upon in the future would not have been developed. Without such technologies, inventors and consumers alike would be deprived of critical advances with respect to key environmental challenges, including the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change. In addition, firms are likely be reluctant to enter into technology transfer arrangements in countries with weak IPR enforcement regimes. Intellectual property rights are thus a key driver of private sector investment. The United States continues to work internationally to ensure robust IPR protection and enforcement, which gives inventors and creators the confidence to invest in the production, adoption and delivery of green technology goods and services without fear of misappropriation, or outright theft, of their IPR.
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