Hello and welcome to this online conversation hosted by the European Centre for International Political Economy,

on the economic and broader societal value of intellectual property, or IP, for the EU and its member

states. My name is Jackie Davis, and today I'm very pleased to welcome Frederick Erickson to

this conversation. Frederick is Director of E.Sype and an author of the recent ESEP study

entitled The Benefits of Intellectual Property Rights in an in EU Free Trade

Agreements. Frederick, great to have you with us today. Welcome. Thank you very much.

Frederick, just let's start with a very basic question. Why did you launch this study? What was the

question you were setting out to answer?

The reason why we did this study is basically, if you look back over several decades,

IPR and especially IPRs in trade agreements have been treated basically as something that the cat has dragged in. So it's, you know, a bit untidy, a bit dirty, no one has really been willing to touch upon it.

And of course, there's been a huge sort of campaign, so at least a lot of commentary in order

to dismiss the notion that IPRs actually play a role.

And if you look around the world economy today,

you're going to find that it's not just trade that is power the economy substantially now,

but also new ideas, new technology, new innovations. We're just going through a pandemic,

where innovation has basically allowed us to start our normal lives again. So with this sort of ideas fused economy, we are right

at the heart of intellectual propped rights. And what we wanted to do with this study was to get

a much better feeling of not just how much they contribute to the EU economy. We wanted to see

four member states, four specific sectors,

the role that intellectual property rights in trade agreements play in generating more economic

dynamism and more economic modernisation. And you said, Frederick, it's treated as if

something the cat dragged in. Why do you think that is? And why does it

...