Title

Anti-Competitive Practices as Trade Barriers in Korean and Japanese Intellectual Property Markets

Abstract

This article shows that anti-competitive practices as trade barriers in intellectual property markets of the two countries have almost identical characteristics. Considering the over-all economic situations of the two countries, this result implies that regulation on intellectual property markets is deeply affected by social or cultural factors as well. As viewed by international standards, the two countries' cultural backgrounds are almost identical, which makes their governments' policy objectives for their intellectual property market regulations very similar in their characteristics. Those policy objectives may come from the cultural atmosphere of the two countries to regard principally the intellectual property rights as the human beings' common heritage, which has deeply been rooted in eastern countries irrespective of their economic or social development levels. Such policy objectives are also closely related to those of the two countries in regulating intellectual property markets to put more emphasis on social stability or consumer protection as compared to the social competitiveness or efficiency in the western countries. Considering the cultural and social environments of the two countries, even though the governments of both countries have systematically and legally tried to achieve the standards of the TRIPs Agreement in regulating the intellectual property markets, it will take substantial time to eliminate the real gap between both contries' policy objectives and those required by the TRIPs.

Disciplines

International Law

Date of this Version

January 2006