On Feb 26, 20+ developing and developed countries joined a presentation and discussion of the new Trade in Ideas Program. The program aims at facilitating trade in ideas – based on markets in patent – between “North” and “South” as a new development policy.

Understanding the forces that are at play in such trade is the purpose, in order to inform economic policy, in particular for developing countries. Such policy will then leverage the human capital formation taking place at a breathtaking speed in many developing countries, through markets in patents.

After a presentation of the concept, a discussion was held with the countries present to get a sense of what key issues are today. These issues will be put into the program, by theme. A first follow-on project was announced: Trade in Ideas Statistics Framework planned for 2018.

The event was held at WTO with invitation by Sweden, who also is funding the pilot-study and plan to fund the first follow-on study to the pilot-study reported in another blog entry.

Presentation from event can be found here: WTO Lunch Presentation of Program.

A link to SwedenGeneva and Twitter @SwedenGeneva (March 1).

Please feel free to follow Twitter @EskilUllberg, for updates and news on this program!