TRIPS

TRIPS

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  Compiled by-Shmmon Ahmad,M.Pharma (Q.A) Chandigarh Group of Colleges, Landra, Mohali(Punjab India)[email protected] 25/12/2012 TRADE RELATED ASPECTS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS (TRIPS) “The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international agreement administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO) that sets down minimum standards for many forms of intellectual property (IP) regulation as applied to nationals of other WTO Members.[2] It was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1994”. The TRIPS agreement introduced intellectual property law into the international trading system for the first time and remains the most comprehensive(shamil) international 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 content producers including performers, producers of sound recordings and broadcasting organizations; geographical indications, including appellations of origin; industrial designs; integrated circuit layout-designs; patents; new plant varieties; trademarks; trade dress; and undisclosed or confidential information. TRIPS also specifies enforcementprocedures, 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
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  technological knowledge andin a manner conducive to social and economic welfare, and to a balance of rights and obligations. Property rights are a social institution, not a natural phenomenon. Intellectual property is an invention of the knowledge-based economy. Both free traders and protectionists in the US agree on the need to protect US intellectual property (IP) rights globally in general and in China especially. Of course a protectionist regime has less, if any, leverage at its disposal for combating the violation of intellectual property rights outside its borders. The Uruguay Round in 1986 produced the WTO Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement. It is supposed to be an attempt to narrow the discrepancy in ways these rights are protected in different countries around the world, and to bring them under common international rules. It establishes minimum levels of protection that each government has to give to the intellectual property of fellow WTO members. In doing so, it attempts to strike a balance between the long term benefits and inevitable short term costs to global society at large. Society benefits in the long term when IP protection encourages creation and invention, especially after the limited period of protection expires and the creations and inventions enter the public domain. National governments are allowed to reduce any short term costs through various exceptions, for example to tackle critical time-sensitive public health problems. The WTO dispute settlement system is designed to settle international trade disputes over IP rights before such disputes translate into political tension.