The Global Governance of Knowledge: Patent Offices and their Clients

Patent offices around the world have granted millions of patents to multinational companies. Patent offices are rarely studied and yet they are crucial agents in the global knowledge economy. Based on a study of forty-five rich and poor countries that takes in the world's largest and smallest offices, Peter Drahos argues that patent offices have become part of a globally integrated private governance network, which serves the interests of multinational companies, and that the Trilateral Offices of Europe, the USA and Japan make developing country patent offices part of the network through the strategic fostering of technocratic trust. By analysing the obligations of patent offices under the patent social contract and drawing on a theory of nodal governance, the author proposes innovative approaches to patent office administration that would allow developed and developing countries to recapture the public spirit of the patent social contract.

Table of Contents:
1. Patent offices and the global governance of knowledge; 2. Labyrinths and catacombs: patent office procedure; 3. The rise of patent offices; 4. The sun and its planets – the European Patent Office and National Offices; 5. The USPTO and JPO; 6. The age of trilaterals and the spirit of co-operation; 7. The jewel in the crown – India's Patent Office; 8. The dragon and the tiger: China and South Korea; 9. Joining the patent office conga line: Brazil; 10. Islands and regions in the patent stream; 11. Reclaiming the patent social contract; 12. Patent administration sovereignty – nodal solutions for small countries, developing countries.

About the Author :
Peter Drahos is a Professor at the Regulatory Institutions Network in the Australian National University and holds a Chair in Intellectual Property at Queen Mary, London University.

Review :
'Professor Peter Drahos, one of the most influential scholars in the area of intellectual property rights, explores in this book a subject largely ignored by the existing literature. His interdisciplinary study unveils how patent offices actually work in about 20 countries, and how they contribute to make up the global patent system. Based on a solid theoretical framework and on a vast and rigorous empirical research, Drahos makes an outstanding contribution to the understanding of international governance and regulation in this area of crucial importance for developed and developing countries alike.' Carlos M. Correa, Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies on Industrial Property and Economics Law, at the University of Buenos Aires '... the lightness and clarity of his writing makes the book remarkably entertaining as well as hugely informative. It will be an invaluable resource for everyone involved in or concerned about the Knowledge Society and that should mean all of us!' Sir John Sulston, Chair of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation, University of Manchester '... Professor Drahos' book offers a timely and thought-provoking review ... Suitable for readers in law, politics, and the wider social sciences, Global Governance of Knowledge is a highly readable and engaging analysis ... This is a book that deserves to be widely read not only for the serious implications it carries for economic development, but also as a work that is well researched, cogently argued and written with a clarity of conception that marks distinguished scholarship.' European Intellectual Property Review 'The book is well-researched, engaging, and filled to the brim with thought-provoking nuggets of current and historical information.' Margot A. Bagley, The IP Law Book Review