Global

The foundation of the global digital economy is showing cracks. Countries that support an open, rules-based global trading system need to agree on a common framework.

Val Giddings' presentation on a panel at the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis meeting argues that regulatory disincentives to innovation in agricultural biotechnology can be reduced by a return to fundamental principals of risk assessment and management, as longstanding U.S. Policy requires.

If countries do not show proper restraint, they can easily sabotage the global Internet by imposing unreasonable obligations on companies and setting up scenarios where companies are forced into a no-win situation of having to comply with conflicting laws.

The next wave of digital innovation is coming. Countries can welcome it, prepare for it, and ride it to new heights of innovation and prosperity, or they can ignore the changing tide and miss the wave.

There are nearly 6,000 firms with revenues exceeding $1 billion, representing nearly two-thirds of global corporate earnings. The 10 percent of those firms with the largest profits produce 80 percent of the group’s total earnings. A new study has found that firms in the top 1 percent outperform the median firm across the board, with 20 times more revenue, 12 times more employees, 2.9 times more R&D intensity, 23 percent more labor productivity, and 14 percent more fixed capital productivity.

The Non-GMO Project food label deliberately deceives and misleads consumers in violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. ITIF petitions FDA to prohibit such labels.

ITIF hosted a discussion with author Mark Zachary Taylor to better understand the politics of innovation and the implications for the United States.

While website blocking was never going to be the silver bullet to solve piracy online, this was never the goal, merely that it be one of the many tools in the toolbox that countries can use to fight piracy and improve the market for legal content online writes Nigel Cory in Innovation Files.

Foreign predatory economic practices harm the U.S. economy. In testimony before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, Rob Atkinson outlines how the U.S. government should respond.

Intellectual property rights go a long way to helping transform clever ideas into life-saving products that address global health challenges, ITIF’s Stephen Ezell and Mark Schultz of the Southern Illinois University School of Law write for Brink News.

Please join ITIF and the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property for an event releasing a new report that documents 25 cases of primarily developing-world entrepreneurs meeting global health challenges by “innovating for health.” The event will discuss what policies, including intellectual property, are needed to underpin successful life-sciences innovation in both the developed and developing world and feature presentations from several developing-country healthcare innovators who are leveraging IP, science, and technology to create a better world.

It is imperative that the United States do more to identify, analyze, and respond to the growing number of countries which are enacting unfair and discriminatory policies that target U.S. ICT firms. The U.S.’s position as a world leader in many high-tech sectors will be undermined if these modern trade barriers continue to spread.