About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

3 J. World Intell. Prop. 3 (2000)

handle is hein.journals/jwip3 and id is 1 raw text is: TRIPS and the 1999 WTo Millennium Round Some Reflections on Future Issues related to Ipps in the WTo and the Way Forward for Developing Countries Jayashree WATAL* I. INTRODUCTION Intellectual property is a subject that up until about a decade back was not heard of by most policy-makers in developing countries. With the TRIPS negotiations, part of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, this subject has been catapulted into the policy limelight in many developing countries. For some time before this, some developed countries, notably the United States, gave the subject top priority. For about a decade, from the 1984 amendments to domestic trade law to the 1994 finalization of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement, the United States pursued its objectives relentlessly, not just through unilateral trade measures and multilateral trade negotiations but through its foreign policy and even its policy on science and technology. Contrary to expectations, improvements to TRIPS will not figure prominently on the trade Agenda for some time to come. Notwithstanding the built-in Agenda and related work in other World Trade Organization bodies, TRIPS has temporarily fallen off the WTo negotiating table and the focus in the foreseeable future is likely to be on implementation and dispute settlement rather than on further development.' Since the conclusion of the TRIPS Agreement, policy-makers, lawyers and others in many countries, both developed and developing, have closely studied the TRIPS language and translated the obligations into law, regulation or procedures. In addition, innumerable commentaries have been written on the Agreement, giving different interpretations of the provisions. There is now an increasing realization that there is an in-built balance in the TRIPS Agreement that WTO Members can use to place legitimate * At present visiting at the Institute for International Economics, Washington, D.C. This article draws heavily from Chapter xit of the author's forthcoming book, Intellectual Property Rights in the World Trade Organization: The Way Forward for Developing Countries, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000. The article has benefited substantively from discussions with Nuno Carvalho,Jacques Gorlin and Adrian Otten; the views expressed here are, however, the author's own and should not be attributed to any organization with which the author is or has been associated. I Joseph Papovich, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative responsible for IP matters, recently sounded much like trade officials from India when he reportedly said on 28 June 1999: We would suggest deferring any negotiations in the WTO to improve the TRIPs Agreement until we all digest what needs to be implemented for now.: see UsTR Official Predicts Difficulty in Forcing Compliance with TRIPs, Inside U.S. Trade, Vol. 17, No. 28, 16 July 1999, pp. 10-11. Also see Adrian Otten, Implementation of the TRIPs Agreement and Prospects for its Further Development, Journal of International Economic Law, Vol. 1, No. 4, December 1998, pp. 523-536, at p. 531.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most