Agreement On Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights - Post-TRIPS Expansion

Post-TRIPS Expansion

The requirements of TRIPS are, from a policy perspective, extremely stringent. Despite this, lobbyists for the industries that benefit from various intellectual property laws have continued since 1994 to campaign to strengthen existing forms of intellectual property and to create new kinds:

• The creation of anti-circumvention laws to protect Digital Rights Management systems. This was achieved through the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WIPO Treaty) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
• The desire to further restrict the possibility of compulsory licenses for patents has led to provisions in recent bilateral US trade agreements.
• It is one thing for states to have intellectual property laws on their statutes, and another for governments to enforce them aggressively. This distinction has led to provisions in bilateral agreements, as well as proposals for WIPO and European Union rules on intellectual property enforcement. The 2001 EU Copyright Directive was to implement the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty.
• The wording of TRIPS Art 27 of non-discrimination is used to justify an extension of the patent system.
• The campaign for the creation of a WIPO Broadcasting Treaty that would give broadcasters (and possibly webcasters) exclusive rights over the copies of works they have distributed.