Implications of Trips

IMPLICATIONS OF TRIPS

The core purpose of Intellectual Property Laws is to protect the property rights of those who innovate and create work, from being imitated. It affirms exclusive rights over one’s creative production for a stated period of time. Its three mechanisms are Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks (World Trade Organization, 2013). The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, abbreviated as TRIPS, is a highly multifaceted international agreement for property rights, whose agreement was negotiated by WTO “in the 1986-94 Uruguay Round” (United Nations University, 2013). It encompasses a majority of intellectual property types, “including patents, copyright, trademarks, geographical indications, industrial designs, trade secrets, and exclusionary rights” (Patent Lens, n.d). It goes beyond most pre-existent IPR rules, and requires minimum protection standards with the provision of some discretion to member countries.

Considering the purpose of a global acceptance of such a protective right, it can be judged that it brings multiple benefits to individuals and economies. Ethically, it rewards and assists the honest effort of innovators and their investments. Additionally, it averts free-riding. From a social and economic standpoint, IPRs also promote creativity and innovation, like a non-monetary subsidization or incentive.

Due to the implementation of TRIPS, various positive implications are seen. It causes a unifying system of conflict-resolution procedures between the WTO’s member countries. This means that the minimal property protection requirements lay out by WTO now have to be accepted by all member countries, including those anticipating membership. This encompasses China and Russia, as “China has upgraded its intellectual property laws to be virtually consistent with TRIPS” (Maskus 2000). This causes social or economic harmonization between countries, thanks to a set of rules which bind all member countries to relatively standardized property rights and protection requirements.

Numerous ethical and social implications caused by TRIPS, however, cannot go unobserved. Considering the agricultural industry, TRIPS requires provision of patents for new product or plant variations, or the provision of protection that’s less restrictive. “The privatization of rights to the outcomes of agricultural research is among the most controversial areas of IPRs” (Maskus, 2000). Agricultural farmers in poor countries would be affected competitively, as they’d struggle to afford new, innovative agricultural inputs that are costly under IPR protection. This forces them to resort to the usage of older technological inputs, making them less efficient and productive, and ultimately less competitive in the industry. Hence, the social implication arises due to an unfair income gap between producers, and competitive advantage held