Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have a profound effect on people´s day-to-day lives, perhaps more than any other aspect of the multilateral trade regime. IPR regimes can both spur innovation and stifle it. They can expand access to new technologies, inventions and ideas, or restrict it. IPRs play a central role in determining access to lifesaving medicines, food security and national economic development. As such, they occupy an important place in economic, trade and science policy discussions.
The significance of intellectual property rules, however, can often be obscured by the technical and seemingly arcane nature of IPR discussions. If countries are to use intellectual property protection successfully to promote innovation, technology transfer and integration into the global economy, it is imperative that their policy-making communities understand the rights and obligations arising from their various IPR obligations. It is the promotion of this understanding that has driven the joint work of UNCTAD and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) on intellectual property rights.
UNCTAD and the ICTSD have launched a new publication, Resource Book on TRIPS and Development(1), as a guide to the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). It analyses the implications of the Agreement´s provisions, specifically highlighting the areas in which it gives WTO members leeway to pursue their own developmental policy objectives. One size certainly does not fit all, and one of the major findings of the publication is that governments need to pursue the IP policies that best accommodate their respective levels of development.
The book is aimed at the entire community of actors that influence IP policy, from decision makers and negotiators to the private sector and civil society, particularly in developing countries. The idea is to provide them with the information needed to best determine their own development objectives and to equip them to advance those objectives effectively at the national, regional and international levels.
The book is divided into six parts and 39 chapters, following the basic structure of the TRIPS Agreement itself. It covers Nature of Obligations, Principles and Objectives (Part 1, Chapters 1-6); Substantive Obligations (Part 2, Chapters 7-28); Intellectual Property Rights and Competition (Part 3, Chapter 29); Enforcement, Maintenance and Acquisition of Rights (Part 4, Chapter 30); Interpretation and Dispute Settlement and Prevention (Part 5, Chapters 31 & 32); and Transitional and Institutional Arrangements (Part 6, Chapters 33-39).
Each chapter is further subdivided into sections on terminology, definition and scope; history; possible interpretations; WTO jurisprudence; relationship with other international instruments; new developments, including national laws, international instruments and regional and bilateral contexts; and comments, including remarks on economic and social implications.
