The Potential for Transatlantic Cooperation on Intellectual Property in Asia.

The Potential for Transatlantic Cooperation on Intellectual Property in Asia †(1) Benedicte Callan Working Paper 116 May 1998 ©Copyright 1998, BRIE Benedicte Callan is Fellow for Political Economy at the Council on Foreign Relations. This paper was prepared for Partners or Competitors? The Prospects for U.S.-European Cooperation on Asian Trade, Richard Steinberg ed., BRIE, forthcoming, 1998. Generous support for production of the BRIE Working Papers Series was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. I. Introduction Asia is capitalism's latest frontier. Its newly industrializing economies have a hefty appetite for modern products but their table manners are not quite what the West expects from its partners. Intellectual property (IP) intensive companies, for one, see in Asia a rapidly growing market for entertainment products and high technologies. In China alone, the potential for growth of intellectual property industries is astronomical. Only 40% of the population in the PRC own a color television, 13% a stereo system, 12% a VCR, and 2% a personal computer. (2) As China develops, the market for American movies, English music recordings, German software, and Japanese video games are likely to explode. In addition, a wealthier PRC will spend more on technology intensive products such as electronics, pharmaceuticals, and agrochemical products. The commercial possibilities in Asia are exciting, but its intellectual property