Egypt has been ranked 41 out 45 in the US Chambers of Commerce’s International Intellectual Property Index,which measures a country’s respect for IP rights, scoring 9.38, far below the global median of 15.39 and a regional average of 13.73. Egypt scored high in membership in international institutions that call for strengthening IP frameworks (such as the World Trade Organization) and got good marks for making it easy to register IP. We ranked low for our high rate of piracy, gaps in copyright law and framework (particularly with regard to protection of content online), a lack of enforcement, and limited participation in international IP treaties, according to the report (pdf).

On a related note Egypt dropped to a rank of 144 on the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. The Heritage Foundation ranks Egypt in the “mostly unfree” category, along economies including Pakistan, Burkina Faso, Argentina, China, and Russia. Heritage, the Atlantic reminds us, is a once-respected conservative think tank helped created the policy frameworks for both Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars strategic missile defense (boo) and Bill Clinton’s welfare problem (not bad), but which has since hit the skids.