2023 International IP Index (2024)

The International IP Index creates a roadmap for economies seeking to strengthen the ecosystem for innovation and creativity through more effective IP standards.

Intellectual property (IP) was critical to how nations, businesses, and individuals managed through and emerged from the COVID pandemic.

Through therapeutics, vaccines, and technology that helped us remain connected, protected, entertained, and informed, IP was pivotal to our ability to work together and for the global economy to recover.

Despite these achievements, policies like the World Trade Organization's move to eliminate IP protection for vaccines incentivize political scapegoating over investing in solutions. This threatens the global framework for IP protections and jeopardizes the future of innovation.

It's important for decision-makers to remember the innovation and creativity ecosystem is not inevitable. From small startups to major corporations, innovators and creators of all stripes depend on a framework of laws that provides a pathway for investments in the exciting, cutting-edge products and services of tomorrow. The hope of a brighter future is only possible through the rule of law.

The International IP Index (Index), created by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is a powerful tool for assessing the strength and effectiveness of IP frameworks established by policymakers worldwide. It provides invaluable data that can be used to not only support arguments, but to inspire real policy changes to drive innovation forward and shape a more promising future.

The 2023 Index highlights a crucial turning point in the global IP landscape. As multilateral organizations continue to debate the future of IP and some of the world's major economies—including the United States—propose unsettling policy changes, the decisions to be made by policy makers will carry unprecedented weight.

Policymakers have a choice: they can help spur innovation and creativity or stop it altogether. Those choices can help create jobs and growth or mix the cement of stagnation.

The Index illustrates that the choice is clear: we can harness IP to help deliver the economy of tomorrow. But we must work together to do it.

The Chamber is proud to stand alongside innovators and creators from around the globe urging decision makers to step up and take a leadership role to protect IP rights. The Index serves as a valuable tool to help guide them, with everyone standing to benefit from the fruits of our shared labor.

Twenty-eight economies’ scores remained unchanged, illustrating that progress to improve global IP protection may be stagnating.

• However, there was still modest progress to strengthen IP protection in some global markets, with scores improving in 18 economies, while nine took steps backwards.
• Morocco,​ Thailand, and Vietnam had the largest improvements in their overall score at 2.5%, 2.5%, and 2.02% respectively.
• Asia had the greatest improvement in the regional average score as a result of score improvements in Malaysia and Singapore, in addition to Thailand and Vietnam.
• Russia’s score dropped 21.62% as a result of a series of measures taken by Russia targeting international rightsholders.

Economies are threatening to weaken the framework for IP-driven innovation through discussions at the multilateral organizations and in capitals.

• IP was critical to the research & development of innovative vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics that underpinned the global response to COVID-19. IP rights facilitated 143 licensing agreements in 31 different countries for COVID-19 therapeutics alone, in turn ensuring that global supply well exceeds demand.
• Yet, ongoing negotiations within the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Health Organization (WHO) to waive IP rights will undermine the innovation ecosystem that was pivotal to combatting COVID-19 and threaten the ability to respond effectively to the next major global public health threat.
• Following the 2021 Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy and the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, policymakers in the United States are considering changes to the patent framework to address concerns with drug prices[i] that will undermine the U.S. life sciences ecosystem and the many U.S. jobs supported by IP-driven innovation.
• Likewise, policy proposals under consideration in the European Union that condition IP protection, reduce the term of regulatory data protection, and undermine investment in rare disease treatments will jeopardize the EU’s long-standing leadership on IP-driven innovation.

Mobile technologies like 5G, which helped consumers remain connected during the global pandemic, also generate a significant, positive economic impact.

• While the deployment of 5G has already contributed over $100 billion to U.S. GDP, studies estimate that the 5G standard will contribute $1.5 trillion to U.S. GDP and create or transform 16 million U.S. jobs by 2025.
• The continued deployment of 5G and other information and communications technologies (ICT) is dependent upon economies creating an enabling environment through strong IP standards. The Index illustrates how economies with the most effective IP frameworks are more likely to have increased availability of ICT technologies, a stronger digital environment, and greater ability to deploy 5G.
• However, economies that utilize localization policies, onerous licensing requirements, and forced technology transfer will stymie the development of new ICT and mobile technologies, including 5G.

Building upon the positive momentum on copyright enforcement in the tenth edition of the Index, many economies continued to take steps to address copyright-infringing content online in 2022.

• In Latin America, Peru’s national IP Office (INDECOPI) and Brazil’s “Operation 404 against piracy” disabled access to hundreds of websites hosting pirated content.
• In Canada, the Federal Court issued a dynamic injunction order requiring Canadian ISPs to disable access to illegal live streaming of National Hockey League matches online.
• In the United States, a U.S. District Court issued injunctions ordering U.S. ISPs to disable access to copyright-infringing content online. However, the U.S. still lacks a comprehensive, modern statutory framework to combat online commercial piracy.

[i]​ The Chamber’s Patient Access Report will examine the specific impact price controls and market access barriers have access to innovation in the U.S. and foreign markets. The report will be released in March 2023.