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World Economic Forum Ranks Canada Ahead of U.S. on IP Protection

By Michael Geist

There is considerable discussion today about a new report from the World Economic Forum on "network readiness."  The U.S. ranks fourth worldwide, while Canada fares poorly overall, ranking 13th in the world (down from 11th last year).   Canada ranks toward the very top in a number of categories including personal computer ownership and e-government readiness so why the disappointing overall result?  Two key factors - the paperwork involved in starting a business (among the worst of 127 countries surveyed) and the uncompetitive mobile and broadband markets.  The latter factor is particularly troubling as the cost of both broadband and mobile phones rank among the highest in the world.

Interestingly, there is a bright light that casts doubt on the repeated (false) claims that Canada is a laggard on intellectual property protection.  In the IP protection category, Canada ranks 15th worldwide, ahead of both the United States and Japan.  The rankings come from the World Economic Forum's Executive Opinion Survey, which ranks the G8 countries in the following order:

1. Germany (1 overall)
2. UK (8)
3. France (9)
4. Canada (15)
5. Japan (17)
6. United States (22)
7. Italy (42)
8. Russia (113)

While the U.S. and copyright lobby groups continue to propagate the myth that Canada fares poorly on IP protection, it turns out that global business executives see it somewhat differently.  If Industry Minister Jim Prentice is serious about addressing Canada's competitiveness concerns, global executives say the problem lies with uncompetitive telecommunications and government paperwork, not our IP law framework.

Full post as published by Michael Geist on April 09, 2008 (boomark / email).