The TRIPS Agreement: Developing Global Rules for Intellectual Property Protection
This chapter examines the non-country-specific factors influencing compliance with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The most significant factors are found to be the perceived inequity and
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The TRIPS Agreement: Developing Global Rules for Intellectual Property Protection
According to the comprehensive model of compliance outlined in Chap. 2, there are various categories of factors which may influence the likelihood or otherwise of compliance with a specific international accord. These categories include both country-specific factors such as the history, size and culture of the country as well as non-country-specific factors relating to the agreement and the activity concerned. In this chapter, these factors external to the Chinese context influencing compliance with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) will be considered. First, the background to the TRIPS Agreement will be outlined, in order to detail the drafting history and consequent context of compliance with this specific accord. Then, the specific characteristics of the TRIPS Agreement will be examined, to analyse their possible effect on compliance. This chapter will also include discussion of the characteristics of the activity which the TRIPS Agreement was designed to solve: intellectual property infringements. Finally, the international environment surrounding the protection of intellectual property rights will be explored.
3.1 The Drafting
of the TRIPS
Agreement
As detailed in Chap. 1, the pre-WTO international trading system did not offer a detailed and universal framework for the protection of intellectual property. Under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1947 (GATT), provisions relating to intellectual property had been limited and effectively no substantive terms applied (Hoekman and Kostecki 2001, p. 282). However, protection of intellectual property became prioritised by developed countries during the 1980s and 1990s due to their growing reliance on technology. It was consequently an important issue during the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations (1986–94), where it proved to be a divisive issue. Following this key round © The Author(s) 2017 K. Thomas, Assessing Intellectual Property Compliance in Contemporary China, Palgrave Series in Asia and Pacific Studies, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3072-7_3
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K. THOMAS
of negotiations, the WTO emerged as the successor to GATT in 1995,1 with the TRIPS Agreement at the heart of the new international organisation. The issue of intellectual property protection was first raised in the context of the GATT system at the close of the Tokyo negotiation round in 1979, where the European Community and the United States (US) unsuccessfully tried to obtain an “Agreement on Measures to Discourage the Importation of Counterfeit Goods” (Goldstein 2001, p. 53). Although the Tokyo Round had attempted to move beyond reducing tariffs as barriers to trade to consideration of non-tariff barriers, this shift in focus was taken to new levels in the years following the conclusion of the Tokyo Round. This new emphasis on intellectual property protection arose as technology started to become more of an important factor in global competit
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