Take The Brussels University Survey On Beliefs About IP

The Free University of Brussels has set out to map predominant normative and causal beliefs regarding IP laws and policies. To give your input and participate in the survey, click here.

The survey takes about 6 minutes to fill in, individual answers will be kept anonymous and aggregate results will be sent to all respondents.

“Ideas are powerful tools at the disposal of stakeholders in IP politics,” the survey organisers said. “It remains unclear, however, which ideas are winning current ‘rhetorical wars’. On the one hand, it is stated that the adoption of the WTO decision on access to medicines and the introduction of the Development Agenda at WIPO are the result of a paradigm shift. On the other hand, it is believed that the conclusion of ACTA and the upgraded standards of protection in some countries testify that old ideas are simply being updated to current technologies.”

“In fact, many studies on the influence of ideas in IP politics are caught in a simplistic, linear and static understanding of ideas’ circulation,” they said. “Too often, IP debates are located on a unidimensional continuum opposing the advocates of stronger IP protection (assumed to be businesses and OECD countries) with the supporters of weaker protection (understood to be NGOs and developing countries).”

“The reality is obviously more complex,” they added. “A clear, multidimensional and dynamical mapping of IP ideas and their flows is still lacking.”

Take the survey here.