IP nationalism is the extractive logic of the global north to maintain absolute control over the rest of the world.

As noted in the Introduction, although all countries may take a nationalistic approach to IP, this Article focuses on delineating the dangers of IP nationalism as exhibited by wealthy countries of the Global North that focus on promoting strong IP rights globally and thereby price essential goods out of reach for many citizens of the Global South. For countries that have high exports of IP protected products, such as drugs, technology, and entertainment (film and movies), this promotes domestic economic interests if other countries provide strong IP rights that maximize revenue. For example, overall GDP will increase if a nation’s exports of copyrighted films are protected in other countries by strong copyright laws since those copyright laws will result in profits to domestic industries. Given the fact that US is a major exporter of IP-intensive goods, it is not surprising that US government officials have often made statements about promoting “strong” or “effective” IP rights.78 Of course, such actions also impose substantial costs on the Global South that then struggle with to pay an IP premium on needed medicine as well as other essential items such as books that are central to education.

IP nationalism can also include actions to protect domestic IP from being stolen. For example, visa limits on Chinese students and scholars were purportedly enacted to limit such individuals from stealing IP for China.79 In addition, a ban on US companies from working with Chinese company Huwei to avoid IP being stolen can be considered IP nationalism.80 Also, laws as well as proposed laws to protect domestic IP are included.81 Similarly, IP nationalism can extend beyond simply protecting domestic IP and include negative characterizations of other nations. This is reflected in a statement by the Assistant Attorney General for National Security when charging hackers that “the Chinese Communist party [has an] insatiable hunger for American and other non-Chinese companies’ hard earned intellectual property, including COVID-19 research.

IP nationalism is a concept related to, yet distinct from innovation nationalism. The term innovation nationalism was coined to explain how the US embraces a national identity of innovation that has contributed to an exportation and forced adoption of US IP norms globally.83 However, IP nationalism is broader in that it focuses on a nation’s interactions in the global arena that emphasize strong IP rights regardless of any domestic identity based on innovation. Although the US engages in IP nationalism as well as IP innovation, that is not true of all countries that seem to embrace IP nationalism. Notably, a country could embrace IP nationalism not because a country predominantly believes that it is innovative – despite lobbying by self interested companies that so proclaim – but, rather, because a country is persuaded that this approach yields, or will yield financial benefits.84

IP nationalism can be embraced by countries that do not have substantial exports of IP intensive goods based on the above definition that IP Nationalism may reflect an assumption that it will yield financial benefits, even if there is no current link between such rights and revenue from export of IP-intensive products. A nation could embrace IP nationalism in the global context in terms of agreeing to higher international IP norms with the belief that strong IP rights globally will ultimately promote more domestic innovation that directly results in greater economic benefits. Alternatively, a nation could embrace IP nationalism to indirectly lead to economic benefits. For example, a nation may embrace IP nationalism to curry favor with a country known to embrace IP nationalism in hopes that this will potentially result in preferential trade associations that would bring economic benefits. This would explain why some countries without strong IP exporting industries such as Colombia and Mexico have opposed changing IP norms during COVID.85 Also, some countries with limited IP exports may nonetheless support strong IP norms due to economic benefits for trade in non-IP goods due to free trade agreements with countries that require strong IP rights, such as the US. For example, although Canada and Australia have fewer IP exports than the US, these countries have free trade agreements with the US that require stronger IP rights that in exchange provide benefits for their non-IP exports. In addition, they have some industries that benefit from IP, even if not to the same extent as the US.86