How to Craft an Innovation Maximizing T-TIP Agreement

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) Agreement should be designed to maximize innovation in the United States and the European Union. Innovation is a central driver of economic growth, and thus a key focal point of U.S. and EU economic development strategies. Ideally, the T-TIP would eliminate all tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade. However, realistically, both the European Union and the United States are going to make trade-offs, and it is important to make these trade-offs in a manner that promotes innovation-based trade as a fundamental driver of global growth.

Policy Recommendations:

Eliminate all tariffs in trade on innovation industries.Liberalize trade in innovative services, especially telecommunication services and audiovisual services.Create transparent, science-based regulatory regimes in the pharmaceutical, automotive and agricultural sectors.Prohibit the use of data center localization as a condition of market access.Honor existing international data flow agreements, such as the Safe Harbor.Introduce rules to prevent restrictions on the import and use of commercial encryption technologies.Lower all barriers to foreign direct investment.Implement an expansion of the EU-U.S. procurement commitments.Outlaw the use of forced offsets.End government production subsidies to areas of innovative trade, like aerospace.Clarify the scope and coverage of national treatment in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), explicitly subjecting state-influenced entities to a robust national treatment obligation.Enshrine 12 years of data exclusivity for biopharmaceutical products.Adopt a common definition for trade secrets: any information that has economic value (actual or potential), is not generally known to the public, and for which the trade secret owner has taken reasonable measures to keep private.Establish a bilateral R&D participation model in order to coordinate cross-border pre-competitive research partnerships.Allow companies participating in pre-competitive research to freely transfer ownership and access rights for foundational IP to affiliates across and between the European Union and the United States.

Eliminate all tariffs in trade on innovation industries.

Liberalize trade in innovative services, especially telecommunication services and audiovisual services.

Create transparent, science-based regulatory regimes in the pharmaceutical, automotive and agricultural sectors.

Prohibit the use of data center localization as a condition of market access.

Honor existing international data flow agreements, such as the Safe Harbor.

Introduce rules to prevent restrictions on the import and use of commercial encryption technologies.

Lower all barriers to foreign direct investment.

Implement an expansion of the EU-U.S. procurement commitments.

Outlaw the use of forced offsets.

End government production subsidies to areas of innovative trade, like aerospace.

Clarify the scope and coverage of national treatment in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), explicitly subjecting state-influenced entities to a robust national treatment obligation.

Enshrine 12 years of data exclusivity for biopharmaceutical products.

Adopt a common definition for trade secrets: any information that has economic value (actual or potential), is not generally known to the public, and for which the trade secret owner has taken reasonable measures to keep private.

Establish a bilateral R&D participation model in order to coordinate cross-border pre-competitive research partnerships.

Allow companies participating in pre-competitive research to freely transfer ownership and access rights for foundational IP to affiliates across and between the European Union and the United States.

Download policy recommendations.