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TRIPS
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Outline
 Introduction
 Basic principles of TRIPS
 Types of Intellectual Property Rights (addressed in the
TRIPS agreement)
 Overview of the TRIPS agreement
 Public policy implications
 Provisions relating to developing countries
 Conclusion
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Introduction
 Brief history of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs).
 Intellectual property rights are the rights given to
persons over the creations of their minds. They
usually give the creator an exclusive right over the
use of his/her creation for a certain period of time.
 Linkage between Intellectual Property (IP) and trade:
broadly through following two premises:
(I) Widespread piracy, counterfeiting and infringements
of intellectual property rights constituted a barrier to
trade.
(II) IPRs transfer agreements.

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Objectives
 To reduce distortions and impediments to international
trade and take into account the need to promote competent
as well as adequate protection of IPRs.
 To ensure that measures and procedures to enforce IPRs do
not themselves become barriers to legitimate trade.
 To reduce tensions by reaching strengthened
commitment to resolve disputes on trade-related IP issues
through multilateral procedures.
 To establish a mutually supportive relationship between
the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and World
Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

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Basic principles: national treatment and balanced
protection
Non-discrimination features prominently in TRIPS, similar
to GATT and GATS,by following principles of:
 National Treatment (Article 3): Equal treatment for foreign
and domestic individuals and companies.
 Most Favoured Nation (Article 4): Equal treatment for
nationals of all trading partners in the WTO.
 TRIPS Agreement has additional important principle:
Intellectual property protection should contribute to
technical innovation and transfer of technology.

TREATIES
 There are 21 international treaties in the field of
intellectual property which are administered by wipo.
 Treaties fall into 3 groups namely
 Treaties, which establish international protection
 Treaties, which facilitate international protection and
 Treaties, which establish classification system.
 1994 uruguay round- agreement on trade related aspects
of intellectual property rights and agreement on trade
related investment measures by WTO.
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Acquisition and maintenance of IP
 Member countries must create office and operate
governmental offices for the acquisition and maintenance
of IPRs.
 Procedures for granting and registration of IPR must be
reasonable.
 Member country's law must provide for opposition,
revocation and cancellation.
 Member country may adopt measures to protect public
health and the public interest.

Forms of Intellectual property Rights
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Types of IPRs:
Copyright and related rights
 Copyrights protects the rights of authors of literary and
artistic works.
 Copyright is an essential a negative right which prevents
others from making copies of the work of an author.

Exclusions from patentability
 Discoveries are not patentable:
Einstein could not patent his celebrated law that E = mc^2;
nor could Newton have patented the law of gravity. Such
discoveries are “manifestations of . . . nature, free to all
men and reserved exclusively to none”
 Literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works.
 Schemes, rules, games, computer programs as such.
 Methods of medical treatment.
 Contrary to public policy and morality: Those which by
publication or exploitation might result in offensive,
immoral or anti-social behavior. Current debate life
patents/GM Food.
 Plant and animal varieties (in EU not in US).

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Trademark
 Trademark protects any word, name, logo or device
used to identify, distinguish or indicate the source of
goods or services.
 Includes trade dress (the total image and overall
appearance of a product) and product configuration (the
shape if non functional).
 The purpose is to safeguard the integrity of products and
to prevent product confusion and unfair competition.
 The term of protection (initial registration and each
renewal of registration of a trademark shall be for a term
of no less than 7 years).

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Geographical Indications (GIs)
 GIs are denominations that identify a good as originating
in a region or locality, where the reputation and quality of
good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin
(for example: Darjeeling tea of India, Mysore silk, Coorg
honey)

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Industrial designs
 Protects the artistic aspect (namely, texture, pattern,
shape) of an object instead of the technical features.
 The term of protection (amount to at least 10 years).
 ‘Amount to’ allow the term to be divided into two
periods (for example two periods of five year).

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Patents
 The TRIPS Agreement requires Member countries to
make patents available for any inventions, whether
products or processes, in all fields of technology without
discrimination, subject to novelty, inventiveness and
industrial applicability
 Invention to be novel,useful and non-obvious.
The agreement allows countries to exclude inventions
from patentability on following grounds:
 Inventions necessary ‘to protect ordre public or
morality; including to protect human, animal or plant life
or health or to avoid serious prejudice to the
environment…’

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Continued..
 Diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical methods for the
treatment of humans or animals
 Plants and animals other than micro-organisms and
essentially biological processes for the production of
plants or animals other than non-biological and
microbiological processes
 Limited Exceptions
 Compulsory Licensing
 The term of protection (for a period of 20 years counted
from the filing date)

Exclusions from patentability
 Discoveries are not patentable:
Einstein could not patent his celebrated law that E = mc^2;
nor could Newton have patented the law of gravity. Such
discoveries are “manifestations of . . . nature, free to all
men and reserved exclusively to none”
 Literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works.
 Schemes, rules, games, computer programs as such.
 Methods of medical treatment.
 Contrary to public policy and morality: Those which by
publication or exploitation might result in offensive,
immoral or anti-social behavior. Current debate life
patents/GM Food.
 Plant and animal varieties (in EU not in US).

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Layout-designs of integrated circuits and trade secrets
 It refers to mask works (topographies) of the integrated
circuits, the stencils used to etch or encode an electrical
circuit on a semiconductor chip
 Protection conferred to “original” layout-
design/topographies.
 The term of protection (ten years form the date of first
commercial exploitation)

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Protection of undisclosedinformation
 The protection must apply to information that is secret,
that has commercial value because it is secret and that has
been subject to reasonable steps to keep it secret
 Trade secrets consist of formulae, patterns, process or
compilation of information. (for example the formula for
a sports drink)
 In most countries, they are not subject to registration but
are protected through laws against unfair competition

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Main feature of the agreement
 Standards: The agreement expresses minimum standards of
protection
(I) The subject matter to be protected
(II) The rights to be conferred and permissible exceptions
(III) The minimum period of protection
 Enforcement
(I) Provisions for domestic procedure and remedies for the
enforcement of the IPRs
(II) Includes general principle applicable to IPR enforcement
procedure apart from administrative, civil and criminal
procedure available for enforcement of rights of the right
holder
 Dispute settlement: The agreement further provides for the
settlement of disputes over IPR among the member states within the
parameters of dispute settlement procedure

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Public policy implications
 Benefits and costs of higher IP standards for developing
countries.
 Protection of traditional knowledge and culture.
 Biological diversity.
 Health.
 Food.
 Investment and transfer of technology.

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Provisions relating to developing countries
 Transitional arrangements.
 Developed countries to provide
(I) Incentives for transfer of technology to Least
Developed Countries (LDCs).
(II) Technical assistance and financial support to
developing countries in preparing laws and
regulations on protection and enforcements of IPRs.

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Conclusion
 Highly innovative agreement and remains the
most comprehensive international agreement on
intellectual property till date.
 Overall it has worked well, however, it needs to
continue to implement wide ranging provisions
specially when it touches significant public policy
questions.

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