Dr. Małgorzata Runiewicz

The role of intellectual property right (IPR) in enhancing the innovativeness in the EU and United States. Policy implications to Poland

The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) is one of the important elements of the state economic policy, which aim is to enhance the research, technological innovations and creativity. The effective protection of intellectual property rights may influence the innovativeness of country in at least two ways: by increasing the income to budget and decreasing the costs of R&D, as well as attracting new capital do high-tech sectors (in particularly foreign direct investments - FDI). There are, however, different views on how should an effective IPR protection look like. Some economists consider, creating a monopoly such as patent, is advantageous for the economy in the long-term, though the profits from the investments in innovations exceed the costs, which must be borne in a short. In practice, some EU countries with the most restrictive laws (e.g. Hungary) receive the most of FDI in the high-tech sector. To most successful in promoting the progress of science considered to be the US and Japan IPR systems.

Facing the new challenges of the EU, such as building the knowledge-based society and improving international competitiveness, it is important analyze thoroughly the reasons of the low innovativeness in the polish enterprises, universities and R&D units. Learning from the best practices of the US and other Western countries will enable to enrich the list of existing incentives for innovative projects.

The seminar is aimed to present the existing differences and similarities of the IPR systems, best practices and incentives existing within these systems in the selected countries and draw main policy implications to Poland.