Technology policy: patent protection and industrial R&D subsidies in Turkey

Some developing economies (especially East Asian Countries) have long imitated western technology. It means that these economies adopted an imitative attitude to new industrial technologies with regard to technology policies. Some changes recently have occurred. Asian economies such as South Korea and Taiwan begin to become fast innovators. Since this development that stimulates the imitation of technology makes worried some rich countries, some measures against this development have been taken by the global economic institutions which are driven by rich countries. In the process of globalization, the main measures, which focus on industrial property rights and industrial R&D subsidies, have been insisted on developing countries by WTO and etc. The present paper examines how national technology policy in Turkey is affected by the globalization process and proposes an evaluation on the pros and cons of patent system and industrial R&D subsidies.