Information AboutTrips |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT AGREEMENT ON TRADE-RELATED ASPECTS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS | |
| intellectual property treaties | |
| world trade organization | |
| copyright treaties | |
| patent law | |
| international trade | |
| business law | |
| 1994 in law | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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Specifically, TRIPs deals with Copyright and related rights, such as rights of performers, producers of sound recordings and broadcasting organisations; Geographical Indications , including appellations of origin; Industrial Designs ; Integrated Circuit Layout-designs ; Patent s, including the protection of New Varieties of Plant s; Trademark s; Trade Dress ; and undisclosed or Confidential Information , including Trade Secret s and test data. TRIPs also specifies Enforcement procedures, remedies, and Dispute Resolution procedures. The obligations under TRIPs apply equally to all member states, however Developing Countries are allowed a longer period in which to implement the applicable changes to their national laws. Although subsequent developments have expanded the original requirements of TRIPs, the agreement itself introduced intellectual property law into the international trading system for the first time, and remains the most comprehensive international agreement on intellectual property to date. TRIPS has been contested by the Alter-globalization movement, concerning for example the consequences on AIDS In Africa . BACKGROUND AND HISTORY TRIPs was added to the General Agreement On Tariffs And Trade (GATT) treaty at the end of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations in 1994. Its inclusion was the culmination of a program of intense Lobbying by the United States , supported by the European Union , Japan and other Developed Nations . Campaigns of unilateral economic encouragement under the Generalized System Of Preferences and Coercion under Section 301 of the Trade Act were also influential. In turn, the United States strategy of linking trade policy to intellectual property standards can be traced back to the entrepreneurship of senior management at Pfizer in the early 1980s, who mobilised corporations in the United States and made maximising intellectual property privileges the number one priority of trade policy in the United States. After the Uruguay round, the GATT became the basis for the establishment of the World Trade Organization. As ratification of TRIPs is a compulsory requirement of World Trade Organization membership, any country seeking to obtain easy access to the numerous international markets opened by the World Trade Organization must enact the very strict intellectual property laws mandated by TRIPs. Furthermore, unlike other international agreements on intellectual property, TRIPs has a powerful enforcement mechanism. States which do not adopt TRIPs-compliant intellectual property systems can be disciplined through the WTO's Dispute Settlement Mechanism , which is capable of authorising Trade Sanctions against non-compliant states. THE REQUIREMENTS OF TRIPS TRIPs requires member states to provide strong protection for intellectual property rights. For example, under TRIPs:
Many of the TRIPs provisions on copyright were imported from the Berne Convention For The Protection Of Literary And Artistic Works and many of its trademark and patent provisions were imported from the Paris Convention For The Protection Of Industrial Property . CONTROVERSY Since TRIPs came into force it has received a growing level of criticism from Developing Countries , Academic s, and Non-governmental Organization s, on the basis that the World Trade Organization system in general and the TRIPs system in particular encapsulates all that is socially, politically and economically unjust about Globalisation , which is protested by the Anti-globalisation movement. However, due to the rule-based system of the WTO, and the technical complexities of applicable laws, many commentators consider that only extensive and intense social and political opposition is likely to overcome the perceived unequal application of TRIPs upon lesser-developed countries and communities. Access to essential medicines The most visible conflict has been over AIDS drugs in Africa . Despite the role which patents have played maintaining higher drug costs for public health programs across Africa, this controversy has not led to a revision of TRIPs. Instead, an interpretive statement, the Doha Declaration , was issued in November 2001 , which indicated that TRIPs should not prevent states from dealing with public health crises. Since then PhRMA , the United States and, to a lesser extent, other developed nations, have been working to minimise the effect of the declaration. TRIPs provides for "compulsory licencing", which allows a national government to issue a licence for the production of drugs without the consent of the patent owner as long as those drugs are primarily for the domestic market. A 2003 agreement loosened the domestic market requirement, and allows developing countries to export to other countries where there is a national health problem as long as drugs exported are not part of a commercial or industrial policy {Link without Title} . Drugs exported under such a regime may be packaged or colored differently to prevent them from prejudicing markets in the developed world. Indeed, in 2004 , the main way that Intellectual Property rules hinders access to medicines comes not so much from the TRIPs Agreement itself but rather from regional trade agreements with more stringent IP requirements, or from the way the TRIPs Agreement has been implemented at the national level. Software and business method patents See Also: Software patents under TRIPs Agreement Another recent controversy has been over the TRIPs Article 27 requirements for patentability "in all fields of technology", and whether or not this necessitates the granting of Software and Business Method Patent s. Use for enforcement of industrial espionage cases The Clinton Administration submitted and won 13 TRIPs international intellectual property theft cases. As of August 2005, the Bush Administration has not submitted any (12:40-16:30) . POST-TRIPS EXPANSIONISM Although the requirements of TRIPs are, from a policy perspective, extremely stringent, the lobby groups working to expand various IP laws ("intellectual property laws") have certainly found "limitations" in it. These have formed the basis for various bilateral and multilateral initatives since 1994:
PANEL REPORTS According to ''WTO 10th Anniversary, Highlights of the first decade, Annual Report 2005'' page 142 {Link without Title} , in the first ten years, 25 complaints have been lodged leading to the panel reports and appellate body reports on TRIPS listed below. The WTO website has a gateway to all TRIPS disputes (including those that did not lead to panel reports) here {Link without Title} .
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