The Agreement on Trade
Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS)
TRIPS
The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international agreement administered by the World Trade Organization
TRIPS is the most important and comprehensive international agreement on Intellectual Property rights
It was formed 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
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
TRIPS Objectives
to reduce distortions and impediments to international trade, taking into account the need to promote effective and
adequate protection of intellectual property rights, and to ensure that measures and procedures to enforce intellectual property rights do not themselves become a barrier to
legitimate trade (preamble).
Article 7
The IPRs covered by the TRIPS
Agreement:
Copyrightand related rights (i.e. the rights of performers, producers of sound recordings and broadcasting
organizations)
Trademarks, including service marks
Geographical indicationsincluding appellations of origin
Industrial designs
Patentsincluding the protection of new varieties of plants
Layout-designs(topographies) of integrated circuits
Undisclosed information, includingtrade secretsandtest data
Copyright and Related Rights
Copyright is theexclusive right to do certain thingswith an original work, including the right to reproduce, publish, perform the work in public, & to make adaptations of it.
Copyright is a right, which is available for creating an original literary or dramatic or musical or artistic work.
include Cinematographic films and Computer programs and software
Trademark
Article 15
Trademark protects any word, name, logo or device used toidentify,distinguishorindicatethe source of goods or services (Article 15)
Includestrade dress(the total image and overall
appearance of a product) and product configuration (the shape if non functional)
The purpose is tosafeguard the integrity of productsand to preventproduct confusionandunfair 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)
Geographical Indications (GIs)
Article 22
GIs are denominations that identify a good as originating in a region or locality, where thereputationandqualityof good isessentially attributable to its geographical origin
(for example: Darjeeling tea of India)
TRIPS prohibits the use of GIs in such a way as to cause deception and provides for injunctive relief, refusal of trademark registration, etc
Exceptions such as Countries are not obligedto bring a geographical indication under protection, where it has
Industrial designs
Article 25
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 years)
The third party is prohibited from making, selling or importing articles bearing a design which is a copy of the protected design, when such acts are undertakenfor commercial purposes
Exception: optional mandate, if introduced then such exceptions do not unreasonably conflict with the normal exploitation of protected industrial designs and do not
unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the owner of the protected design
Patents
Article 27
The TRIPS Agreement requires Member countries to make patents available forany inventions, whetherproducts or processes, in all fields of technology without discrimination, subject tonovelty,inventivenessandindustrial
applicability
Invention to be useful and non-obvious
The agreement allows countries to exclude inventions from patentability on following grounds:
a) Inventions necessary to protect order public or morality; including to protect human, animal or plant life or
b) Diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical methods for the treatment of humans or animals
c) 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
d) Limited Exceptions
e) Compulsory Licensing
The term of protection (for a period of 20 years counted from the filing date)
Layout-designs of integrated
circuits and trade secrets
Article 35
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
Exclusive rights include theright of reproduction and the right of importation,saleandother distributionfor
commercial purposes
Protection of undisclosed information
Article 39
The protection must apply to information that is
secret, that has commercial value because it is secret and that has beensubject to reasonable steps to keep it secret.
Trade secrets consist of formulae, patterns, process or compilation of information. (example: theformula for a sports drink)
In most countries, they are not subject to registration but are protected through laws against unfair
competition
Curbing anti-competitive licensing
contracts
Article 40
The owner of a copyright, patent or other form of
Provision on basic principles
National treatment
each Member shall accord to the nationals of
other Members treatment no less favourable than it
accords to its own nationals with regard to the
protection of intellectual property
(Art. 3)
Most-Favoured-Nation Treatment
With regard to the protection of intellectual
property, any advantage, favour, privilege or
immunity granted by a Member to the nationals of
any other country shall be accorded immidiately
and unconditionally to the nationals of all other
Members
(Art. 4)
Other provisions
ENFORCEMENT PROVISIONS
General obligations like enforcement procedures must be
available; procedures to be fair and equitable etc
Special obligations like enforcing provisions for enforcing civil and
administrative procedures like Disposal of infringing goods, Right of
information etc
DISPUTE SETTLEMENT
Aims for prevention of disputes through provisions on transparency
