The Role of Trade Secrets in Innovation Policy

[Excerpt] This report provides an overview of the law and policy of trade secrets. It discusses the role of trade secrets in U.S. innovation policy. It then reviews the sources of trade secret law and the substantive rules that they provide. The report then provides a more detailed review of existing federal legislation that pertains to trade secrets. In its next section, the report then discusses the relationship between patent law and trade secret law. The report closes with an identification of congressional issues and options within this field

U.S. Trade with Free Trade Agreement (FTA) Partners

This report presents data on U.S. merchandise (goods) trade with its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partner countries. The data are presented to show bilateral trade balances for individual FTA partners and groups of countries representing such major agreements as the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement and Dominican Republic (CAFTA-DR) relative to total U.S. trade balances. This report also discusses the issues involved in using bilateral merchandise trade balances as a standard for measuring the economic effects of a particular FTA

U.S. Foreign Trade in Services: Trends and U.S. Policy Challenges

[Excerpt] This report provides background information and analysis on U.S. foreign trade in services. The focus of the report is an analysis of the policy challenges that the United States confronts, especially the challenge of negotiating a set of international disciplines on trade in services and dealing with the complexity of measuring trade in services. The report also focuses on emerging issues and current negotiations, especially those pertaining to the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement

U.S. International Trade: Trends and Forecasts

[Excerpt] This report provides an overview of the current status, trends, and forecasts for U.S. import and export flows as well as certain balances. The purpose of this report is to provide current data and brief explanations for the various types of trade flows along with a brief discussion of trends that may require attention or point to the need for policy changes. The use of trade policy as an economic or strategic tool is beyond the scope of this report but can be found in various other CRS reports. Further detail on trade in specific commodities, with particular countries or regions, or for different time periods, can be obtained from the Department of Commerce, U.S. International Trade Commission, or by contacting the authors of this report

Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) Renewal: Core Labor Standards Issues: A Brief Overview

[Excerpt] This report is a brief overview of key issues addressed in CRS Report RL33864, Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) Renewal: Core Labor Standards Issues. Trade promotion authority (TPA), formerly known as “fast-track” authority, is scheduled to expire July 1, 2007. With it will expire the President’s authority to negotiate trade agreements that Congress will then consider without amendment and with limited debate. For the 110th Congress, a likely issue in this debate is whether to include enforceable core labor standards as a principal negotiating objective in trade agreements. Accordingly, this report (1) identifies key labor provisions in the current TPA law and how they have translated into free trade agreements negotiated under it; (2) presents some legislative options, and summarizes arguments for and against listing enforceable core labor standards as a principal negotiating objective; and (3) looks at possible outcomes and implications of the legislative options. This report will be updated as events warrant

U.S. Customs and Border Protection: Trade Facilitation, Enforcement, and Security

[Excerpt] This report describes and analyzes import policy and CBP’s role in the U.S. import process. (The report does not cover CBP’s role in the U.S. export control system.) The first section of the report describes the three overarching goals of U.S. import policy and the tension among them. Second, the report provides a legislative history of customs laws, followed by an overview of the U.S. import process as it operates today. Third, the import process and CBP’s role in it are discussed. The final section highlights several policy issues that Congress may consider in its oversight role or as part of customs or trade legislation, including measures seeking to provide additional trade facilitation benefits to importers and others enrolled in “trusted trader” programs, to improve enforcement of intellectual property and trade remedy laws, to strengthen cargo scanning practices, and/or to promote modernization of customs data systems, among other issues. A list of trade-related acronyms used in the report is provided in Appendix A

Leveraging the WTO Secretariat Recommendation from the Report of the High-Level Board of Experts on the Future of Global Trade Governance. Bertelsmann Policy Brief 2018

The Bertelsmann Stiftung has called into life a High-Level Board of Experts on the Future of Global Trade Governance. Composed of eminent experts and seasoned trade diplomats, it elaborated a number of recommendations to increase the effectiveness and salience of the WTO. The entirety of these recommendations and underlying analysis of the changing political economy of international production and trade can be found in the Board’s report “Revitalizing Multilateral Governance at the WTO”, authored by Prof Bernard Hoekman. This briefing is part of a series of six, each of which details one specific recommendation from the report

Rising trade tensions call for policy dialogue between WTO members Recommendation from the Report of the High-Level Board of Experts on the Future of Global Trade Governance. Bertelsmann Policy Brief 2018

The Bertelsmann Stiftung has called into life a High-Level Board of Experts on the Future of Global Trade Governance. Composed of eminent experts and seasoned trade diplomats, it elaborated a number of recommendations to increase the effectiveness and salience of the WTO. The entirety of these recommendations and underlying analysis of the changing political economy of international production and trade can be found in the Board’s report “Revitalizing Multilateral Governance at the WTO”, authored by Prof Bernard Hoekman. This briefing is part of a series of six, each of which details one specific recommendation from the report

Engagement with Stakeholders in the Trading System. Recommendation from the Report of the High-Level Board of Experts on the Future of Global Trade Governance. Bertelsmann Policy Brief 2018

The Bertelsmann Stiftung has called into life a High-Level Board of Experts on the Future of Global Trade Governance. Composed of eminent experts and seasoned trade diplomats, it elaborated a number of recommendations to increase the effectiveness and salience of the WTO. The entirety of these recommendations and underlying analysis of the changing political economy of international production and trade can be found in the Board’s report “Revitalizing Multilateral Governance at the WTO”, authored by Prof Bernard Hoekman. This briefing is part of a series of six, each of which details one specific recommendation from the report. The full report can be accessed under https://www.bertelsmannstiftung. de/fileadmin/files/BSt/Publikationen/ GrauePublikationen/MT_Report_Revitalizing_ Multilateral_Governance_at_the_WTO.pd

Trade Mark Cluttering: An Exploratory Report Commissioned by UKIPO

This report explores the problem of “cluttering” of trade mark registers. The report consists of two parts: the first presents a conceptual discussion of “cluttering” of trade mark registers. The second part provides an exploratory empirical analysis of trade mark applications at the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) and the European trade mark office (OHIM). This part contains results of a descriptive and an econometric analysis. According to our definition, cluttering arises where firms hold trade marks that are overly broad or unused raising search costs for later applicants. The report distinguishes between three mechanisms that can lead to cluttering. It also considers a series of mechanisms that work against cluttering. This discussion is based on a review of the previous literature. The tentative empirical evidence provided in the second part of the report suggests that trade marks are more frequently registered in several classes at the same time and also that firms in pharmaceuticals increasingly resort to multiple simultaneous applications to ensure that they will register at least one trade mark. There is also some evidence that firms seek to avoid mechanisms such as relative grounds examination which can prevent cluttering. Finally, we report direct survey-based evidence that applicants perceive cluttering to be a problem in specific fields and countries. However, our exploratory analysis does not provide strong evidence that cluttering has already become a systemic problem for the trade mark systems that is comparable to the effect of patent thickets for patent systems