What Is Trips Agreement Intellectual Property

Daniele Archibugi and Andrea Filippetti[34] argue that the importance of the TRIPS Agreement in the process of generating and disseminating knowledge and innovation has been overestimated by its promoters. This point has been supported by the United Nations` findings, which suggest that many countries with low protection regularly benefit from high levels of foreign direct investment (FDI). [35] An analysis of OECD countries in the 1980s and 1990s (in which the patent term of medicines was extended by 6 years) showed that while the total number of registered products increased slightly, the average innovation index remained unchanged. [36] In contrast, Jörg Baten, Nicola Bianchi and Petra Moser (2017)[37] find historical evidence that compulsory licensing – a key mechanism for weakening intellectual property rights covered by Article 31 of the TRIPS Agreement – can indeed be effective in promoting inventions by increasing the risk of competition in areas where the level of competition is already low. However, they argue that the benefits of weakening intellectual property rights depend heavily on whether governments can credibly commit to using them only in exceptional cases, as companies can invest less in research and development if they expect repeated episodes of compulsory licensing. The implementation of the standards of the TRIPS Agreement has a significant impact on access to medicines and public health. By restricting competition and local production, there is a risk that the TRIPS Agreement will increase high prices for medicines and exacerbate the crisis of access to medicines. But the question of what should be patented is left to countries. The agreement simply states that patents must be granted for new, inventive and useful inventions – but it does not define these terms. Deciding whether, for example, a new formulation (which produces a pill version of a drug that was previously available in powder form) or a new combination (combining two or more existing molecules in a new pill) merits a new twenty-year patent is a prerogative of countries and is not determined by WTO texts. Countries should therefore determine what types of inventions in the field of pharmaceuticals merit patents taking into account their own social and economic conditions.

This is exactly what some governments, such as Brazil, Thailand or India, have done. In today`s world, this decision can be a matter of life and death for many patients. Other intellectual property agreements to which the TRIPS Agreement relates: the Paris Agreement, the Berne Convention, the Rome Convention and the Integrated Circuits Treaty. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international agreement between all member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It establishes minimum standards for the regulation of various forms of intellectual property (IP) by national governments, as applied to nationals of other WTO member states. [3] The TRIPS Agreement was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) between 1989 and 1990[4] and is administered by the WTO. The TRIPS Agreement requires Member States to ensure strong protection of intellectual property rights. For example, in the context of TRIPS: the WTO`s Council on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Council) monitors the implementation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement), provides a forum for WTO Members to consult on intellectual property issues, and assumes the specific responsibilities conferred on the Council in the TRIPS.

As in the main existing conventions on intellectual property, the fundamental obligation of each member country is to accord persons of other members the treatment provided for in the convention with regard to the protection of intellectual property. Article 1.3 defines who these persons are. Such persons are called nationals, but include natural or legal persons who have close links with other members without necessarily being nationals of them. The criteria for determining which persons should therefore benefit from the treatment provided for in the Agreement are those set out for that purpose in the main existing WIPO conventions on intellectual property, which of course apply to all WTO Members, whether or not they are parties to those agreements. These conventions are the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention, the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations (Rome Convention) and the Treaty on Intellectual Property in Integrated Circuits (IPIC Treaty). In addition to the basic intellectual property standards created by the TRIPS Agreement, many countries have concluded bilateral agreements to introduce a higher standard of protection. This set of standards, known as TRIPS+ or TRIPS-Plus, can take many forms. [20] The general objectives of these agreements are: What are intellectual property rights? Intellectual property rights are the rights granted to people over the creations of their minds. News on the TRIPS Council and intellectual property at the WTO, prepared for non-specialists. Article 10 of the Convention provides: “(1) Computer programs, whether in source code or object, are protected as literary works under the Berne Convention (1971). (2) Compilations of data or other documents, whether machine-readable or in another form, which constitute intellectual creations by reason of the selection or arrangement of their content, shall be protected as such.

This protection, which does not extend to the data or the material itself, does not affect the copyright that exists in the data or the material itself. Unlike other intellectual property agreements, the TRIPS Agreement has a powerful enforcement mechanism. States can be sanctioned by the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. The general objectives of the TRIPS Agreement are set out in the preamble to the Agreement, which sets out the basic objectives of the Uruguay Round negotiations set out in the TRIPS area by the Punta del Este Declaration of 1986 and the Mid-term Review of 1988/89. These objectives include reducing distortions and barriers to international trade, promoting effective and adequate protection of intellectual property rights, and ensuring that enforcement measures and procedures for intellectual property rights do not themselves become barriers to legitimate trade. These objectives should be read in conjunction with Article 7 (“Objectives”), according to which the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and the transfer and dissemination of technology for the mutual benefit of producers and users of technological knowledge and in a manner conducive to social and economic prosperity — and to a balance of rights and obligations. .