Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights

TRIPS AGREEMENT:
  • TRIPS provide minimum standards in the form of common set of rules for the protection of intellectual property globally under WTO system. 
  • The TRIPS Agreement, which came into effect on 1 January 1995, is to date the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property.
  • The TRIPs agreement gives set of provisions deals with domestic procedures and remedies for the enforcement of intellectual property rights.
  • It also expands international copyright rules to cover rental rights.
  • The general goal is to be  Preamble, and include reducing distortions and impediments to international trade, promoting effective and adequate protection of IPRs, and ensuring that measures and procedures to enforce IPRs do not themselves become barriers to legitimate trade.

TRIPs Agreement Covers Seven Categories of Intellectual Property Rights

(i) Copyright
(ii) Trademarks
(iii) Geographical Indications
(iv) Industrial Designs
(v) Patents
(vi) Integrated Circuits
(vii) Trade Secrets

 


 Features of TRIPS agreement: 



1. Standards:

  • The subject-matter to be protected
  • the rights to be conferred and permissible exceptions to those rights
  • Minimum duration of protection.

2. Enforcement:

  • domestic procedures and remedies 
  • Contains provisions on civil and administrative procedures and remedies, provisional measures, special requirements related to border measures and criminal procedures.

3. Dispute settlement:

  • Disputes between WTO Members about the respect of the TRIPS obligations subject to the WTO's dispute settlement procedures.


Implications of TRIPS agreement:
  •  Nearly 400 cases have reached the world trade organisation, out of which nearly 250+ have gone to final stage.

  • Protection and enforcement of all intellectual property rights shall contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology, to the mutual advantage of producers and users of technological knowledge.

  • The implication of TRIPS is that member countries should design domestic intellectual property legislations on the basis of TRIPs provisions.

  • In India, the government has made a major amendment to the 1970 Patent Act in 2005 to accommodate the TRIPS provisions. In 2010, the Copyright Act was amended and enforced from 2012.
Substantive Standards of Protection:
Copyrights:
 Under The Paris Act of 1971,

ARTICLE

KEY POINTS

9.1

Point of departure is expressed where the members should comply with substantive provisions.

6

Members don’t have rights or obligations to claim authorship.

9.2

Copyright protection shall extend to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operations or mathematical concepts.

10.1

Computer programs in code are protected as literary works.

10.2

Data bases and other compilations of data shall be protected.
   
Trademarks:

ARTICLE

KEY POINTS

15

Any sign, or any combination of signs, capable of distinguishing the goods and services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings, must be eligible for registration as a trademark.

16.1

In case of the use of an identical sign for identical goods or services, a likelihood of confusion must be presumed

17

Members may provide limited exceptions to the rights conferred by a trademark, such as fair use of descriptive terms, provided that such exceptions take account of the legitimate interests of the owner of the trademark and of third parties.

18

The registration of a trademark shall be renewable indefinitely

                                                                                                           

19

Other person can use the trademark by getting approval from the registrar can be allowed.

 Geographical Indications:

ARTICLE

KEY POINTS

22.1

Any indications which identify a good as originating in the territory of a member, region, locality where the reputation is attributable in that geographical region.

22.2

To avoid misleading of indications by public

23

indication is accompanied be expressions such as kind, type, style, imitation or the like.

24

contains a number of exceptions to the protection

Patents:

ARTICLE

KEY POINTS

27.1

patent rights enjoyable without discrimination as to the place of invention and whether products are imported or locally produced

27.2

commercial exploitation of the invention must also be prevented

27.3(a)

that Members may exclude from patentability diagnostic, therapeutic

and surgical methods for the treatment of humans or animals

27.3(b)

the whole provision is subject to review four years after entry into force of the Agreement

28

Patent owners shall also have the right to assign, or transfer by succession, the patent and to conclude licensing contracts.

Reference: Technical publications - Dr. Meenu Pandey, Dr. Prabhat Pandey.

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