There is a strong push by developed nations (who are strong producers of intellectual property) to force developing nations to improve their enforcement of intellectual property rights, despite the fact that they themselves were slow to adopt strong protection of intellectual property during their own development phase. US industry has estimated it loses between US$200-250 billion annually due to copyright infringement around the world, and the Bush Administration has listed 14 countries which need to improve protection of intellectual property or face US trade sanctions -- the countries are Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey and Venezuela. Israel stands out on this list by having a software piracy rate of only 35%, the same as Canada and slightly more than half the software piracy rate of Brazil, with the next lowest software piracy rate at 61%.

However, developing countries claim they need access to knowledge, and developed countries will need to yield some ground to make it worthwhile for developing nations to increase protection of intellectual property. During discussions held by the World Intellectual Property Organization on this topic, India's representatives said "For developing countries to benefit from providing IP protection to rights holders based in developed countries, there has to be some obligation on the part of developed countries to transfer and disseminate technologies to developing countries."