Identify and discuss the advantages and challenges relating to intellectual property protection as the commercial world becomes more globally integrated.

For many years there have been international conventions regulating the protection and exploitation of intellectual property rights. However, these conventions have been agreed among nations of similar development and industrialization. As governments become more involved in both encouraging and regulating trade and foreign investment in the information age, there have been increased efforts to establish multilateral agreements to ensure protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights of owners doing business across borders. This has come to the fore with the increase of sophisticated exports and technology transfer investments made into lesser developed countries by companies from more industrialized nations. In many of these jurisdictions, intellectual property laws are either non-existent or poorly enforced. In these situations, businesspeople must make careful judgments as to whether they wish to risk losing control of their intellectual property in jurisdictions where unpredictable laws and enforcement measures are prevalent.