Abdulateef Hashim Khairi ,

Before answering the question, I think it is good to understand some background first. I will focus mainly on patents which is usually the most controversial of IP rights.

Let us start with the difference between science and technology(to which IP applies). Science aims at understanding the laws of nature. It tries to answer the why of things and also provide an accurate description of the phenomena. Technology on the other hand aims at the how-do-we-do X of things. Technology has to be laboured and can be roughly conceptualised as a natural right.

Taking technology labour as a technology right is equal to stating that one worked 40 hours at a lecture and merits pay. The difference lies at the novelty of the knowledge and the "advancement" to society but at the cost of higher risk. Under such scenario an incentive of protection is given to encourage such development. In some cases the investment to pursue an idea is substantial (equipment, prototypes, etc.) and involves high risk. If it involves risk, then the reward should be higher or at least proportional to the risk undertaken.

Now, given this background, I would like to focus on the question:

Does free access to information resources pose a risk to the intellectual property rights?

If the knowledge is about science then it does not. IP rights exclude laws of nature, since you cannot appropriate nature itself. If it is information about a technology, then it represents a misappropriation of rights (any researcher working 40 hours would complain if they do not receive payment, why is it wrong for a researcher that works in technology not claim misappropriation? there is higher risk in doing technology research due to failure, with nature even negative results are useful)

From the governments perspective, it is a different matter. When playing catch up with other nations, the faster the diffusion of knowledge, the better. But as the catch up is achieved, greater investment risk is needed for cutting edge technology and therefore higher incentives are needed(stronger IP rights).

Regards

IPR must be protected for the development. As each country has its own legal system so its obvious that law of one country will differ from other,that's why we have international conventions like TRIPS, berne convention,paris convention and signatories of these convention are bound to adhere the provisions of these conventions into their domestic law so as to be in consonance with international standard.....so yes a strong Ip system must be there to protect ipr and researchers too.free access to information for researchers though can be treated as fair use which is an exception to copyright infringement.....

Good point of view.. I agree with you.. Thank you my dear colleague

Patents are all about making information available - the whole idea behind them is to give an inventor exclusive rights in exchange for disclosing how the invention works. So "access" to the information is not a problem, rather, it's the whole point.

Few inventors or small businesses can afford to patent an invention all around the world, and entrepreneurs in the smaller countries are often free to make and sell products that are patented in, say, the US, Europe, Japan, and China. That's good for the local economy, and it's not exactly a "threat" to the inventor -- although it can reduce the potential to earn profits in those countries. Inventors have to make a business decision on where they intend to market the product, and how much they should invest in patent protection in those countries.