Pharmaceutical

What do WTO Agreements say about intellectual property?

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international body dealing with international trade rules. It aims at facilitating trade among countries by creating conditions of competition that are fair and equitable. To this end, it encourages countries to enter into negotiations for the reduction of tariffs and the removal of other barriers to trade and requires them to apply common sets of rules to trade in goods and services.

One set of these rules, pertaining to intellectual property, is contained in the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (or the TRIPS Agreement").

The TRIPS Agreement, which is binding on all Members of the WTO, is an attempt to narrow the gaps in the way these rights are protected around the world, and to bring them under common international rules setting what are generally referred to as 'minimum norms and standards of IP protection. As the TRIPS Agreement requires compliance with those norms and standards, Members may need to enact or modify their legislation, rules and procedures to regulate the registration, granting, enjoyment, and enforcement of IP rights accordingly. When there are trade disputes over IP rights relating to the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement, the WTO dispute settlement system is available. The agreement covers five broad areas:

• How the basic principles of the international trading system and of other international IP agreements should be applied;
• How to give adequate protection to IP rights;
• How countries should enforce IP rights adequately in their own territories;
• How to settle disputes on IP between Member States of the WTO; and
• Transitional arrangements during the period when the new system is being introduced.

While it may be useful for enterprises to understand the basic rules of the game on IP at an international level for the purposes of trading in IP-protected goods and services, it is the national or regional IP laws that provide the bases for registration, granting, exploitation and enforcement of IP rights. So, as an SME, your primary focus should be on the national and regional legislation(s) applicable either in your own country or in other countries to which you may be exporting or in which you have strategic business relationships.