Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in the World Trading System: the TRIPS Agreement and Developing Countries

"The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is one of the aspects of the world trading system on which the views of the industrialized and developing countries are sharply divided. While the industrialized countries celebrate the Agreement as a breakthrough in the global protection of intellectual property, the developing countries fear that rising prices of knowledge-intensive products and impeded access to know-how will delay their technological catching-up process. Intellectual property rights are an important means of promoting technological progress because they give inventors monopoly rights in their innovations for a limited period. This has the disadvantage of preventing the socially desirable earliest possible dissemination of knowledge. The TRIPS Agreement is leading to the international approximation of legislation on the protection of intellectual property at a relatively high level and to a significant increase in protection in most developing countries. The less developed countries will suffer welfare losses; more advanced developing countries may also benefit from stronger intellectual property rights because of increasing technology transfer and domestic innovation." [text abstract