Canada leads U.S. in International Property Rights Index

Barry Sookman tweeted yesterday about a new study analyzing data on 125 countries to establish a property rights index. The Index focuses on three areas: Legal and Political Environment, Physical Property Rights, and Intellectual Property Rights, and is being to used to promote the importance of intellectual property. Looking at the data, Canada's overall ranking is ahead of the U.S. (Canada is 12th, the U.S. is 15th).

The specific intellectual property rankings are also notable as they highlight the absurdity of the IIPA's ongoing campaign characterizing Canada as weak on IP. Canada's ranks 13th in the survey for intellectual property rights, tied with countries such as France, the UK, and New Zealand (Canada is 17th in copyright protection). The ranking is all the more remarkable since one of the primary data sources for the ranking is the IIPA itself. In other words, even after using IIPA data, Canada ranks alongside many other countries that are typically applauded by the IIPA for their IP policies.

In fact, the IIPA recommended ten countries for inclusion on the USTR Special 301 Priority Watch List: Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Mexico, People’s Republic of China, the Philippines and Russia. The ranks of these countries in this study for IP protection are all well below Canada's 13th:

Ӣ Argentina - 67
Ӣ Chile - 49
Ӣ Costa Rica - 67
Ӣ India - 50
Ӣ Indonesia - 108
Ӣ Mexico - 59
Ӣ China - 63
Ӣ Philippines - 63
Ӣ Russia - 72

The attempt to characterize Canada as a laggard in the class with countries like China and Russia - alongside claims that supporting open source software makes a country weak on IP - are just some of the reasons the IIPA claims have been roundly criticized by many countries in the past. It is also why the CCIA's submission, which rightly notes that Canada that meets the adequate and effective standard, is the more credible assessment of the current state of the law.

Michael Geist is a law professor and the Canada Research Chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa.