Intellectual Property Rights in the Arab World

Eric Garduño and Frank J. Pietrucha

For the 280 million people inhabiting the area stretching from Rabat to Muscat, economic prospects are grim. Arab scholars are frustrated with the region’s lackluster performance in the marketplace. They worry that stagnant economic growth and an exploding population could mean that significant unemployment will continue to plague the area for years to come. These concerned scholars argue that it is not the historic burdens of colonial rule or a lack of natural resources that keep Arab countries from advancing. Instead, they argue that Arab countries have done a poor job of developing and using the intellectual resources they have.

The recently published United Nations Arab Human Development Report (UNAHDR) has identified a host of reasons why Arab economic performance has floundered, ranging from regional conflict to the disenfranchisement of women. Included high among the causes is the "knowledge gap" that the region is currently facing. The Arab region, which led the world in scientific study in the Middle Ages, has done a poor job in recent times of developing new scientific and technological capacity, and effectively using the capacity it already has. If in fact the UNAHDR is correct in its assertion that, "development prospects for Arab countries are increasingly linked to the capabilities of their work forces and the quality of their intellectual capital," then this sort of poor policy decision-making must end. Indeed, the future economic status of the region will depend greatly on the ability of Arab countries to utilize the intellectual resources they possess, particularly when recent global economic trends are taken into account.

Shifting Sources of Economic Prosperity.

For much of the twentieth century, economic prosperity for all countries was measured by their level of industrial development. The number of factories, smoke stacks, and assembly lines a country had were worn like honor badges, displaying that nation’s level of development to the rest of the world. However, over the course of the last few decades, the composition of the leading economies has shifted. This shift has been marked by a decline in the overall contribution of large-scale manufacturing industries that rely heavily on low-skilled labor, and a rise in the economic importance of high-technology or "knowledge-based" industries.

Knowledge-based industries are characterized as those that produce goods and services that require highly-skilled and talented human resources to create, develop, or manufacture. Final products include new software programs and gene-based treatments for disease, but could also include media products that disseminate knowledge and culture, such as movies, sound recordings, and books. These examples illustrate the main difference between traditional industrial economies and knowledge-based economies. Unlike industrial economies, where value is measured primarily by output of physical products, the value in knowledge-based economies is in the information, knowledge, and know-how that go into a particular good or service. It is this sort of intangible property that is the main driving force in knowledge-based economies.

It is clear to many economists what the UNAHDR acknowledges: economic prosperity for all countries for the foreseeable future will increasingly be tied to how they transition to knowledge-based industries. . .