Lutte anti-contrefaçon et transferts de technologies nord-sud : un véritable enjeu

The prevailing general trend over half-a-century has led to a progressive strengthening of intellectual property laws, in line with increasingly rigorous measures against counterfeiting, which are given legitimacy by means of inadequate explanations on counterfeiting and its alleged effects. These explanations pretend that this is a matter of public interest whilst protecting purely private interests by conveying exaggerated figures on counterfeiting and by decrying some of its effects. On the contrary, there should be an analysis made of the counterfeit phenomenon from more aspects and with more rigour. Moreover, anti-counterfeit measures recently adopted or drafted in Community and international law undermine personal freedom and interfere with legitimate trade with disproportionate regard to the real impact of this phenomenon and its effects. Fighting counterfeiting by forcing developing countries to renounce it by increasing the number of very severe legal regimes is a strategy doomed to failure as long as these countries are not convinced of their interest in respecting intellectual property by a real implementation of policies on technology transfer giving rise to concrete and tangible results.