Question

What are some of the key international agreements on intellectual property rights? Who are key actors involved and what are their political or economic interests for or against these agreements?

Answer 1

Paris Convention for the protection of intellectual property falls under WIPO, which was adopted in 1983. It included common rules for all intellectual property as well as other things such as priorities in granting patents and national treatment. As many as 177 countries fall under this category. The convention was an important one as it laid down many important rules for the regulation of intellectual property. Another agreement by WIPO is the Patent Law Treaty (2000) which aimed at making the process of filing patent applications more user-friendly. It is a purely economic agreement aimed to minimise time and cost of filing patents.

Another international agreement on intellectual property rights is Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) between all WTO member countries. It was formed in 1995 with the commencement of WTO and trade relations were laid down therein. Some developing countries were given a time window of 10 years to fully implement the agreements. This agreement was driven by developed countries and they are the ones that have gained from it. Since TRIPS commanded product patenting instead of process patenting, it helped in stop the process of reverse-engineering (which was mostly used by developing countries to imitate products of developed countries). Developing countries seem to have lost due to this agreement because of their limited financial resources and lack of ability to invest in R&D.