Innovation and Entrepreneurship Innovation and entrepreneurship are the engines fuelling the technological revolution. Given the right mix of continuing education, research and development, financing, science and technology policies; innovation and entrepreneurial activity can flourish. In order to promote and facilitate a culture of innovation there is need greater collaboration between all stakeholders, in order to build a sustainable foundation for productive activity. The approach to innovation should reflect both a regional and international perspective. This will enable the country to identify and attract the human, creative, financial, institutional and other resources it needs to enhance its overall competitiveness. Intellectual Property Rights and Responsibilities There is general recognition that countries around the world need to revisit the basic tenets of intellectual property rights as they have so far evolved. This is especially so given that some provisions in intellectual property legislation in some developed countries appears to be restrictive beyond what is practical in an economic sense, particularly for small-island states. In a digital environment, there are conflicting privileges that must be balanced as policy makers seek to weigh the ability to innovate, which comes from fair use of intellectual property against the right of an inventor to reap financial benefits from his or her invention. The use and application of intellectual property rights is a challenge, which has to be examined. Barbados must come to grips with this challenge, as powerful interests in developed countries attempt to write the rules of the game for knowledge creation and protection in order to maintain their competitive advantage in the global trade arena. 22

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