TECHNOLOGY POLICY PARADIGMS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY STRATEGIES - 3 NATIONAL MODELS

This paper constructs and contrasts mission-oriented and diffusion-ori ented policy paradigms for commercial technology and suggests that the U.S. and Japan, respectively, are representative of both. This paper also investigates the new American challenge of intellectual property institution in international competition and concludes that the U.S. a nd Japan appear to be two successful cases in forming synergistic rela tionships between technology policy and intellectual property system, the former in an offensive position and the latter in a defensive posi tion. In this new era, the U.S. industry's traditional strength as a ' 'first mover'' in generating technology is better appropriated than be fore, and follower countries mainly relying on technology diffusion an d application are in a very disadvantageous position. In the follower group, perhaps Japan is the only exception because its patent system i s deliberately in favor of its industry at the expense of foreign inve ntors and in support of its diffusion-oriented policy. Taiwan's case s hows that a Japanese-style government-industry partnership is not easy to form and firms need to formulate their own corporate strategies to cope with the new intellectual property challenge. In all, the U.S., Japan, and Taiwan constitute three models with profound implications f or many other countries.