The following article examines the influence that the NAFTA regulations to protect intellectual property and the traffic of services have had on the Mexican innovation system. To begin with, Chapter 12 (traffic of services) and Chapter 17 (intellectual property) of the NAFTA regulations will be compared to the provisions of the TRIPS agreement. This will be followed by a consideration of the spillover effects that have occurred since the introduction of the NAFTA Treaty. Following this, the article examines the innovative behaviour of Mexican companies and research institutes since the introduction of NAFTA, and analyses how the treaty is perceived by the latter. The work is based on a document analysis of the NAFTA Treaty as well as on interviews with trade associations, researchers and politicians in the field of innovation policy, which were carried out by the author in 2007.
