The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was created in 1947 and operated almost five decades on a provisional basis until 1995 when the WTO was established. Its goal is to improve the welfare of peoples of its member countries, specifically by lowering trade barriers and providing a platform for the negotiation of trade. The organization deals with the rules of trade between nations at a global or near global level; it is responsible for negotiating and implementing new trade agreements and charged with policing Member Countries' adherence to all WTO agreements. In 2007 there were 150 Member States.

1. Thematic overview: Charting the evolution of knowledge flows Antony Taubman and Jayashree Watal; Part I. Conceptual framework: 2. The shifting contours of trade in knowledge: the new 'trade-related aspects' of intellectual Property Antony Taubman; 3. How digitization is transforming trade Lee Tuthill, Antonia Carzaniga and Martin Roy; 4. Intellectual property and digital trade -mapping international regulatory responses to emerging issues Wolf R. Meier-Ewert and Jorge Gutierrez; Part II. Measuring trade in knowledge: 5. Measuring international intellectual property transactions in a globalized world: current challenges and possible improvements Joscelyn Magdeleine and Andreas Maurer; 6. A missing link in the analysis of global value chains: Cross-border flows of intangible assets, taxation and related measurement implications Thomas Neubig and Sacha Wunsch-Vincent; 7. Global ebbs and flows of patent knowledge Andrew W. Torrance, Jevin D. West, and Lisa C. Friedman; 8. Sources of knowledge flow between developed and developing countries Laurie Ciaramella, Gaétan De Rassenfosse and Florian Seliger; 9. Using intellectual property data to measure cross-border knowledge flows Jacob Dubbert, Alexander V. Giczy, Nicholas Pairolero and Andrew A. Toole; 10. The Global Digital Content Landscape Erick Oh; 11. Cross-border knowledge flows through R&D FDI: Implications for LMMICs Vito Amendolagine, Cristina Chaminade, José Guimón and Roberta Rabellotti; 12. The innovation environment and knowledge diffusion: improving policy decisions through patent analytics Holger Ernst, Carsten C. Guderian and Marco Richter; Part III. Impact of knowledge flows on trade and development: 13. Global knowledge flows, absorptive capacity, and capability acquisition: old ideas, recent evidence, and new approaches Lee Branstetter and Keith E. Maskus; 14. Trade in intellectual property-intensive goods Mercedes Delgado and Margaret Kyle; 15. Knowledge spillovers through international supply chains Roberta Piermartini and Stela Rubínová; 16. How do patents shape global value chains? International and domestic patenting and value-added Trade Nikolas J. Zolas and Travis J. Lybbert; 17. The enforcement of intellectual property rights in a digital Era Michael D. Smith and Rahul Telang; 18. The digital creative economy and blockchains: options and prospects for the developing world Keith Nurse, Erica Smith, Kayla Grant and Alicia Shepherd; Part IV. Policy, regulatory and legislative frameworks; 19. Streaming of music and audiovisual works Mary Lafrance; 20. Adapting trade rules for the age of big data Mira Burri; 21. Trade in knowledge and cross-border data flows: a look at emerging digital regulatory issues Nigel Cory; 22. Cross-border knowledge flows under international trade agreements: a need for new multilateral disciplines? Lucas Spadano and Luiza Tângari Coelho; 23. The need for a global framework for knowledge transactions: cross border licensing and enforcement Jacques de Werra and Jeff C. Dodd; 24. Fitting machine-generated data into trade regulatory holes Peter K. Yu; 25. Looking forward Antony Taubman.