Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights | |
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Type | Annex to the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization |
Signed | 15 April 1994 [1] |
Location | Marrakesh, Morocco [1] |
Effective | 1 January 1995 [2] |
Parties | 164 (All WTO members) [3] |
Languages | English, French and Spanish |
Full text | |
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights at Wikisource |
The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international legal agreement between all the member nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It establishes minimum standards for the regulation by national governments of different forms of intellectual property (IP) as applied to nationals of other WTO member nations. [4] TRIPS was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) between 1989 and 1990 [5] and is administered by the WTO.
The TRIPS agreement introduced intellectual property law into the multilateral trading system for the first time and remains the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property to date. In 2001, developing countries, concerned that developed countries were insisting on an overly narrow reading of TRIPS, initiated a round of talks that resulted in the Doha Declaration. The Doha declaration is a WTO statement that clarifies the scope of TRIPS, stating for example that TRIPS can and should be interpreted in light of the goal "to promote access to medicines for all."
Specifically, TRIPS requires WTO members to provide copyright rights, covering authors and other copyright holders, as well as holders of related rights, namely performers, sound recording producers and broadcasting organisations; geographical indications; industrial designs; integrated circuit layout-designs; patents; new plant varieties; trademarks; trade names and undisclosed or confidential information, including trade secrets and test data. TRIPS also specifies enforcement procedures, remedies, and dispute resolution procedures. Protection and enforcement of all intellectual property rights shall meet the objectives to contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology, to the mutual advantage of producers and users of technological knowledge and in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare, and to a balance of rights and obligations.
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TRIPS was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986–1994. Its inclusion was the culmination of a program of intense lobbying by the United States by the International Intellectual Property Alliance, supported by the European Union, Japan and other developed nations. [6] Campaigns of unilateral economic encouragement under the Generalized System of Preferences and coercion under Section 301 of the Trade Act played an important role in defeating competing policy positions that were favored by developing countries like Brazil, but also including Thailand, India and Caribbean Basin states. In turn, the US 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 mobilized corporations in the United States and made maximizing intellectual property privileges the number one priority of trade policy in the United States (Braithwaite and Drahos, 2000, Chapter 7). [7]
Unlike other agreements on intellectual property, TRIPS has a powerful enforcement mechanism. States can be disciplined through the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism.
TRIPS requires member states to provide strong protection for intellectual property rights. For example, under TRIPS:
The TRIPS Agreement incorporates by reference the provisions on copyright from the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Art 9), with the exception of moral rights. It also incorporated by reference the substantive provisions of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (Art 2.1). The TRIPS Agreement specifically mentions that software and databases are protected by copyright, subject to originality requirement (Art 10).
Article 10 of the Agreement stipulates:
- Computer programs, whether in source or object code, shall be protected as literary works under the Berne Convention (1971).
- Compilations of data or other material, whether in machine readable or other form, which by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations shall be protected as such. Such protection, which shall not extend to the data or material itself, shall be without prejudice to any copyright subsisting in the data or material itself.
The obligations under TRIPS apply equally to all member states; however, developing countries were allowed extra time to implement the applicable changes to their national laws, in two tiers of transition according to their level of development. The transition period for developing countries expired in 2005. The transition period for least developed countries to implement TRIPS was extended to 2013, and until 1 January 2016 for pharmaceutical patents, with the possibility of further extension. [11]
It has therefore been argued that the TRIPS standard of requiring all countries to create strict intellectual property systems will be detrimental to poorer countries' development. [12] [13] It has been argued that it is, prima facie, in the strategic interest of most if not all underdeveloped nations to use the flexibility available in TRIPS to legislate the weakest IP laws possible. [14]
This has not happened in most cases. A 2005 report by the WHO found that many developing countries have not incorporated TRIPS flexibilities (compulsory licensing, parallel importation, limits on data protection, use of broad research and other exceptions to patentability, etc.) into their legislation to the extent authorized under Doha. [15] This is likely caused by the lack of legal and technical expertise needed to draft legislation that implements flexibilities, which has often led to developing countries directly copying developed country IP legislation, [16] [17] or relying on technical assistance from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which, according to critics such as Cory Doctorow, encourages them to implement stronger intellectual property monopolies.
Banerjee and Nayak [18] shows that TRIPS has a positive effect on R&D expenditure of Indian pharmaceutical firms.
In addition to the baseline intellectual property standards created by the TRIPS agreement, many nations have engaged in bilateral agreements to adopt a higher standard of protection. These collection of standards, known as TRIPS+ or TRIPS-Plus, can take many forms. [19] General objectives of these agreements include:
According to WTO 10th Anniversary, Highlights of the first decade, Annual Report 2005 page 142, [20] in the first ten years, 25 complaints have been lodged leading to the panel reports and appellate body reports on TRIPS listed below. [21]
TRIPs imposed on the entire world the dominant intellectual property regime in the United States and Europe, as it is today. I believe that the way that intellectual property regime has evolved is not good for the United States and the EU; but even more, I believe it is not in the interest of the developing countries.
Since TRIPS came into force, it has been subject to criticism from developing countries, academics, and non-governmental organizations. Though some of this criticism is against the WTO generally, many advocates of trade liberalisation also regard TRIPS as poor policy. TRIPS's wealth concentration effects (moving money from people in developing countries to copyright and patent owners in developed countries), and its imposition of artificial scarcity on the citizens of countries that would otherwise have had weaker intellectual property laws, are common bases for such criticisms. Other criticism has focused on the failure of TRIPS to accelerate investment and technology flows to low-income countries, a benefit advanced by WTO members in the lead-up to the agreement's formation. Statements by the World Bank indicate that TRIPS has not led to a demonstrable acceleration of investment to low-income countries, though it may have done so for middle-income countries. [33]
Daniele Archibugi and Andrea Filippetti have argued that the main motive for TRIPS was a decline in the competitiveness of the technology industry in the United States, Japan, and the European Union against emerging markets, which it largely failed to abate. They instead argue that the main supporters and beneficiaries of TRIPS were IP-intensive multinational corporations in these countries, and that TRIPS enabled them to outsource key operations to emerging markets. [6]
Archibugi and Filippetti also argue that the importance of TRIPS, and intellectual property in general, in the process of generation and diffusion of knowledge and innovation has been overestimated by its supporters. [6] This point has been supported by United Nations findings indicating many countries with weak protection routinely benefit from strong levels of foreign direct investment (FDI). [34] Analysis of OECD countries in the 1980s and 1990s (during which the patent life of drugs was extended by six years) showed that while total number of products registered increased slightly, the mean innovation index remained unchanged. [35] In contrast to that, Jörg Baten, Nicola Bianchi and Petra Moser (2017) find historical evidence that under certain circumstances compulsory licensing – a key mechanism to weaken intellectual property rights that is covered by Article 31 of the TRIPS – may indeed be effective in promoting invention by increasing the threat of competition in fields with low pre-existing levels of competition. They argue, however, that the benefits from weakening intellectual property rights strongly depend on whether the governments can credibly commit to using it only in exceptional cases of emergencies since firms may invest less in R&D if they expect repeated episodes of compulsory licensing. [36]
TRIPS-plus conditions mandating standards beyond TRIPS have also been the subject of scrutiny. [37] These FTA agreements contain conditions that limit the ability of governments to introduce competition for generic producers. In particular, the United States has been criticised for advancing protection well beyond the standards mandated by TRIPS. The United States Free Trade Agreements with Australia, Morocco and Bahrain have extended patentability by requiring patents be available for new uses of known products. [38] The TRIPS agreement allows the grant of compulsory licenses at a nation's discretion. TRIPS-plus conditions in the United States' FTAs with Australia, Jordan, Singapore and Vietnam have restricted the application of compulsory licenses to emergency situations, antitrust remedies, and cases of public non-commercial use. [38]
The most visible conflict has been over AIDS drugs in Africa. Despite the role that patents have played in 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 and allowed for compulsory licenses. After Doha, PhRMA, the United States and to a lesser extent other developed nations began working to minimize the effect of the declaration. [39]
In 2001, at the Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, several World Trade Organization (WTO) members proposed changes to Articles 27 and 31 of the TRIPS Agreement, aiming to strike a balance between patent protection for pharmaceuticals and the impact of such protection on drug prices. This initiative led to the Doha Declaration, which reaffirmed the sovereign right of WTO members to grant compulsory licenses for pharmaceuticals. The Declaration also acknowledged the struggles faced by countries with limited pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities in utilizing compulsory licensing under TRIPS, signaling perceived limitations within the original TRIPS framework. Following two years of intense negotiations, the TRIPS Council responded by implementing the Waiver Decision in 2003, which temporarily allowed WTO members to grant compulsory licenses free from the restrictions of TRIPS Articles 31(f) and 31(h). The principles of this decision were later codified into TRIPS through the Amendment Protocol of 2005, which introduced Article 31bis, effectively becoming law in 2017 post-ratification by two-thirds of WTO members.
Article 31bis allows a WTO member with insufficient or no manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical sector (the "Importing State") to import patented pharmaceutical products produced under a special export compulsory license granted by another WTO member (the "Exporting State"). It is structured as a dialogical interaction between an Importing State and an Exporting State and has specific procedural requirements. The Exporting State can issue an export compulsory license exempt from Article 31(f) restrictions, but the license must comply with several specific terms. Developed WTO members can opt-out from being Importing States, but the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the potential shortfalls of this decision as several developed countries struggled with inadequate vaccine production capabilities. [40]
In 2003, the US Bush administration changed its position, concluding that generic treatments might in fact be a component of an effective strategy to combat HIV. [41] Bush created the PEPFAR program, which received $15 billion from 2003 to 2007, and was reauthorized in 2008 for $48 billion over the next five years. Despite wavering on the issue of compulsory licensing, PEPFAR began to distribute generic drugs in 2004–05.
In 2020, conflicts re-emerged over patents, copyrights and trade secrets related to COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and treatments. South Africa and India proposed that WTO grant a temporary waiver to enable more widespread production of the vaccines, since suppressing the virus as quickly as possible benefits the entire world. [42] [43] The waivers would be in addition to the existing, but cumbersome, flexibilities in TRIPS allowing countries to impose compulsory licenses. [44] [45] Over 100 developing nations supported the waiver but it was blocked by the G7 members. [46] This blocking was condemned by 400 organizations including Doctors Without Borders and 115 members of the European Parliament. [47] In June 2022, after extensive involvement of the European Union, the WTO instead adopted a watered-down agreement that focuses only on vaccine patents, excludes high-income countries and China, and contains few provisions that are not covered by existing flexibilities. [48] [49]
Another 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 patents.
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. The modern concept of intellectual property developed in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. The term "intellectual property" began to be used in the 19th century, though it was not until the late 20th century that intellectual property became commonplace in most of the world's legal systems.
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention. In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce their rights.
The World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty is an international treaty on copyright law adopted by the member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1996. It provides additional protections for copyright to respond to advances in information technology since the formation of previous copyright treaties before it. As of August 2023, the treaty has 115 contracting parties. The WCT and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, are together termed WIPO "internet treaties".
The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to promote and protect intellectual property (IP) across the world by cooperating with countries as well as international organizations. It began operations on 26 April 1970 when the convention entered into force. The current Director General is Singaporean Daren Tang, former head of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, who began his term on 1 October 2020.
The Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health was adopted by the WTO Ministerial Conference of 2001 in Doha on November 14, 2001. It reaffirmed flexibility of TRIPS member states in circumventing patent rights for better access to essential medicines.
In international law, the Berne three-step test is a clause that is included in several international treaties on intellectual property. Signatories of those treaties agree to standardize possible limitations and exceptions to exclusive rights under their respective national copyright laws.
The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) is a coalition of seven trade associations representing American companies that produce copyright-protected material, including computer software, films, television programs, music, books, and journals. Formed in 1984, it seeks to strengthen international copyright protection and enforcement by working with the U.S. government, foreign governments, and private-sector representatives.
Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have been acknowledged and protected in China since 1980. China has acceded to the major international conventions on protection of rights to intellectual property. Domestically, protection of intellectual property law has also been established by government legislation, administrative regulations, and decrees in the areas of trademark, copyright, and patent.
A compulsory license provides that the owner of a patent or copyright licenses the use of their rights against payment either set by law or determined through some form of adjudication or arbitration. In essence, under a compulsory license, an individual or company seeking to use another's intellectual property can do so without seeking the rights holder's consent, and pays the rights holder a set fee for the license. This is an exception to the general rule under intellectual property laws that the intellectual property owner enjoys exclusive rights that it may license—or decline to license—to others.
The Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, also known as the WTO Fourth Ministerial Conference or MC4, was held at the Sheraton Doha Hotel and Resort, Doha, Qatar from November 9–13, 2001. At this conference, ministers from all WTO members launched the Doha Development Agenda.
James Packard Love is the director of Knowledge Ecology International, formerly known as the Consumer Project on Technology, a non-governmental organization with offices in Washington, D.C., and Geneva, that works mainly on matters concerning knowledge management and governance, including intellectual property policy and practice and innovation policy, particularly as they relate to health care and access to knowledge.
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, was an international assembly held in 1886 in the Swiss city of Bern by ten European countries with the goal of agreeing on a set of legal principles for the protection of original work. They drafted and adopted a multi-party contract containing agreements for a uniform, border-crossing system that became known under the same name. Its rules have been updated many times since then. The treaty provides authors, musicians, poets, painters, and other creators with the means to control how their works are used, by whom, and on what terms. In some jurisdictions these type of rights are referred to as copyright; on the European continent they are generally referred to as authors' rights or makerright.
Iran is a member of the WIPO since 2001 and has acceded to several WIPO intellectual property treaties. Iran joined the Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property in 1959. In December 2003 Iran became a party to the Madrid Agreement and the Madrid Protocol for the International Registration of Marks. In 2005 Iran joined the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration, which ensures the protection of geographical names associated with products. As at February 2008 Iran had yet to accede to The Hague Agreement for the Protection of Industrial Designs.
The Special 301 Report is prepared annually by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) that identifies trade barriers to United States companies and products due to the intellectual property laws, such as copyright, patents and trademarks, in other countries. By April 30 of each year, the USTR must identify countries which do not provide "adequate and effective" protection of intellectual property rights or "fair and equitable market access to United States persons that rely upon intellectual property rights".
Republic Act No. 8293, otherwise known as The Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines lays down the rules and regulations that grant, and enforce patents in the Philippines. Patents may be granted to technical solutions such as an inventions, machines, devices, processes, or an improvement of any of the foregoing. The technical solution must be novel, innovative, and industrially useful. In order for a technical solution to be granted a patent, the inventor must file an application to the Bureau of Patents, which will examine, and in some cases, grant its approval. The law is designed as to foster domestic creativity, to attract foreign investors, and to motivate inventors to release their products for public access.
Access to medicines refers to the reasonable ability for people to get needed medicines required to achieve health. Such access is deemed to be part of the right to health as supported by international law since 1946.
The TRIPS Agreement waiver is a joint intervention communication by South Africa and India to the TRIPS council of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 2 October 2020.
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