The TRIPS Agreement

Paper Summary:

This paper explains WTO's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), negotiated in the 1986-94 Uruguay round of talks, which introduced intellectual property rules into the multilateral trading system for world-wide trade, apply to all WTO member countries and protect copyrights, trademarks, geographical indication, industrial design, patents, and trade secrets. The author points out that TRIPS had a unequal impact on developed and developing countries because the developing countries rely more on the production and export of consumable goods, while the developed countries, particularly the European Union and United States, rely on export-based revenues from copyright licensing, which means the TRIPS Agreement actually works against the developing countries by driving up their import bills and resulting in greater transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich countries. The paper recommends that a completely new international trade agreement should be negotiated; the developing countries should be well-advised to be better prepared and more assertive in the next round of trade negotiations and should be better off if they avoid the temptation of accepting short-term gains in exchange for long-term losses.

Table of Contents
Overview of TRIPS
Basic Principles
Transition Period
Areas of Application
Enforcement
Impact of TRIPS on Developing Countries
Application of TRIPS on Medicines
Biopiracy
Terminator Crops
Why Did the Developing Countries Agree to TRIPS?
The Other Side of the Picture
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Even low-technology products, e.g., as brand-name clothing and agricultural products such as new varieties of grains and plants have value-added to them due to research, design and innovation. Creators of such products, whether they are companies, individuals or nations, ought to have the right to stop others from using their 'brainchild' and to have the right to negotiate a mutually acceptable compensation if others desire to use their inventions. Such rights have come to be known as "intellectual property rights." It is generally acknowledged that the protection of "intellectual rights" is an incentive for innovation that benefits the society as a whole."

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