Agreement On Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights - Criticism

Criticism

Since TRIPS came into force it has received a growing level of criticism from developing countries, academics, and non-governmental organizations. Some of this criticism is against the WTO as a whole, but many advocates of trade liberalization also regard TRIPS as bad policy (see, for example, Jagdish Bhagwati's In Defense of Globalization for a discussion on the detrimental effect of TRIPS on access to medicines in developing countries). TRIPS' wealth redistribution effects (moving money from people in developing countries to copyright and patent owners in developed countries) and its imposition of artificial scarcity on the citizens of countries that would otherwise have had weaker intellectual property laws, are a common basis for such criticisms.

Peter Drahos writes that "It was an accepted part of international commercial morality that states would design domestic intellectual property law to suit their own economic circumstances. States made sure that existing international intellectual property agreements gave them plenty of latitude to do so."

Daniele Archibugi and Andrea Filippetti argue that the importance of TRIPS in the process of generation and diffusion of knowledge and innovation has been overestimated by both their supporters and their detractors. Claude Henry and Joseph E. Stiglitz argue that the current intellectual property global regime may impede both innovation and dissemination, and suggest reforms to foster the global dissemination of innovation and sustainable development.