Knowledge Governance: Reasserting the Public Interest

This book argues that the current international intellectual property rights regime, led by the World Trade Organization (WTO), has evolved over the past three decades toward overemphasizing private interests and seriously hampering public interests in access to knowledge and innovation diffusion. This approach concentrates on tangible and codified knowledge creation and diffusion in research and development (R&D) that can be protected via patents and other intellectual property rules and regulations. In terms of global policy initiatives, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that the WTO in particular is mostly a conflict-resolution facility rather than a global governance body able to generate cooperation and steer international coordinated policy action. At the same time, rent extraction and profits streaming from legal hyperprotection have become pervasively important for firm strategies to compete in a globalized marketplace. “Knowledge Governance: Reasserting the Public Interest” offers a novel approach – knowledge governance – in order to move beyond the current regime.

Leonardo Burlamaqui is Program Officer at the Ford Foundation (New York and Rio de Janeiro) and Associate Professor of Political Economy at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Ana Célia Castro is Professor at the Institute of Economics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Rainer Kattel is Professor of Innovation Policy and Technology Governance and head of the Department of Public Administration at the Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia.