On November 5, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) participated in the Dialogues of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), focused on the strategic use of Intellectual Property (IP) to promote economic growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Latin America and the Caribbean. During the event, it was discussed how, through comprehensive public policies, efficient use of intellectual property can be made.
In the opening presentation of the meeting, Nicolo Gligo, Economic Affairs Officer at ECLAC, pointed out the need to integrate intellectual property into productive development policies, within the framework of ECLAC’s new vision for such policies. To do this, he began by highlighting the main messages of the recently launched Panorama of Productive Development Policies. This publication shows that there is stagnation in productivity and establishes that the increase in productivity must be addressed from different policy areas, such as science, technology and innovation, digital transformation, access to financing. , internationalization and investment promotion, among others, with comprehensive governance and a territorial orientation.
Gligo highlighted that the first step is to identify the strategic role of IP in the operation of companies and in the multiple areas of productive development policies. So, for example, “companies often ask about a country’s intellectual property system before deciding to invest, since the maturity of the IP protection system can be a determining factor,” Gligo explained. In addition, he pointed out that public policies must consider a certain sectoral specificity and mentioned the 14 driving sectors that ECLAC has proposed for the countries of the region to establish their productive priorities.
As Gligo pointed out, these opportunities are also given by the capabilities and resources of the companies themselves. This is how two types of strategies can be differentiated: defensive and proactive. Defensive strategies correspond to basic actions such as trademark registration, web domain and patent protection. On the other hand, proactive strategies, typically adopted by larger companies, seek to leverage intellectual property to consolidate markets, generate revenue or expand internationally.
Taking all this into consideration, Gligo mentioned that governments have the opportunity to move from a merely protectionist approach to a more ambitious one, which mobilizes resources and actors in favor of innovation and productivity. “Instead of thinking about how we can protect research and development, the goal should be to maximize innovation and technological diffusion for productivity improvement.”
In closing, Gligo stated that it is necessary to establish ambitious objectives that allow collaboration between key actors – such as the public sector, academia and companies – to improve governance and generate policies that promote productive development from multiple sectors of the economy. .
Add Comment