1. Compiled by-Shmmon Ahmad, M.Pharma (Q.A) Chandigarh Group of Colleges, Landra, Mohali(Punjab
India)email-shmmon@gmail.com 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

2. technological knowledge and in 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.