ADVERTISEMENTS:
This article provides information about the trade related aspects of intellectual property rights:
Ideas and knowledge emerging out of research, innovation, invention, and application of advanced technology are important parts of trade.
Image Courtesy : xm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/trade.jpg
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The WTO agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Right (TRIPs) aims to grant the creators “the right to prevent others from using their inventions, designs or other creations and to use that right to negotiate payment in return for others using them!” Disputes over intellectual property rights are settled based on certain basic principle.
Some of them are mentioned below:
National Treatment:
Equal treatments for all nations are the basic principles of TRIPS. It also stipulates that intellectual property protection should contribute to technical innovation and transfer of technology.
Intellectual Property Rights:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
TRIPs have made elaborate arrangements to protect intellectual property. It protects the copyright of producers of intellectual property. Computer programme is protected as literary work. Similarly sound recording, films and the performers are given the rights to prevent the unauthorised use of one’s production. While service marks will be protected as trademarks, well-known trademarks will envoy additional protection.
Patent Protection:
According to the agreement, patent protection must be available for inventions for at least 20 years. Patent protection is available both for products and processes in almost all fields of technology. Government however can refuse to issue a patent for an invention if its commercial exploitation affects public order or morality. Regarding plant, it is said that plant varieties must be protected and protectable by patents.
While the patent owners are given specific rights to enjoy and to prevent the possible abuse of those rights, the member governments are authorised to issue “compulsory licensees” allowing a competitor to produce the product or use the process under license by safeguarding the legitimate interests of the patent-holder”. Patent protection for pharmaceutical products at times prevents poor people of developing countries from having access to medicine.
The Doha Ministerial Conference in November 2001 has agreed to grant exemptions on pharmaceutical patent protection for least developed countries until 2016. Developing countries see technology transfer as a part of a bargain in which they have agreed to protect intellectual property right. The TRIPs agreement requires the developed countries to provide incentives for their companies to transfer technology to least developed countries.
When the WTO agreements took effect on 1 January, 1995, developed countries were given one year to ensure that their laws and practices conform to the TRIPS agreement. Developing countries and transition economies were given five years, until 2000. Least- developed countries have 11 years, until 2006, which presently extended to 2016 for pharmaceutical patents. If a developing country did not provide product patent protection in a particular area of technology when the TRIPS Agreement came into force (1 January, 1995), it has up to 10 years to introduce the protection.
But for pharmaceutical and agricultural chemical products, the country must accept the filing of patent applications from the beginning of the transitional period, though the patent need not be granted until the end of this period. If the government allows the relevant pharmaceutical or agricultural chemical to be marketed during the transition period, it must – subject to certain conditions – provide an exclusive marketing right for the product for five years, or until a product patent is granted, whichever is shorter.
When a country exports a product at a price lower than it normally charges in its home market, it is said to be the “dumping of the product.” Binding tariffs, and applying them equally to all trading partners, are key to the smooth flow of trade in goods. GATT allows countries to take action against dumping. The Anti- Dumping Agreement allows countries to act in a way not discriminating between trading partners. Typically, anti-dumping action means charging extra import duty on the particular product from the particular exporting country in order to bring its price closer to the “normal value” or to remove the injury to domestic industry in the importing country.