RESEARCH. It forces investigating a distinction grounded in the literature.

The way that law is enforced (or not) in practice is distinct to the existence of law on the books since enforcement depends on the behaviour of public agents (Dixit 2009). While IPR law in a country is codified and evidenced in writing in the legislative books of its IPR system, it is subject to the interpretation of the judiciary and other public IPR enforcement agents such as customs, police and trading standards. This is because the application of IPR law in practice is at the discretion of IPR enforcement agents who are bounded by the legislative norms of their perspective country (Hebert and McLemore 1973). The extent to which the public IPR enforcement agents will effectively engage and enforce IPR will be influenced by their ‘shared sets of beliefs’ about IPR infringement and if they consider an IPR infringing activity to be illegal. Also, even if the IPR legislative framework in a host country includes laws that enable punitive sanctions to IPR infringers, these may never be utilized by the judiciary or not enforced in practice by the customs officials. The same IPR laws available in two different countries may be applied differently depending on the way that the IPR law is decoded and interpreted by the IPR enforcement agents of the country (e.g., punitively in one country and non-punitively in another). Strong public IPR enforcement is expected to prevail in countries where public IPR enforcement agents effectively prosecute IPR infringement and judiciary independently and transparently apply IPR law in practice (Pajunen 2008). In contrast, weak public IPR enforcement is expected to be witnessed in countries with opaque, arbitrary and ineffective judiciary and enforcement authorities who are more receptive to corrupt practices and/or unlikely to enforce the IPR laws in practice because of lack of legislative/social norms conducive to law enforcement (Maskus 2004).