اتفاقية حماية حقوق الملكية الفكريةtrips -أي استراتيجية للتعامل معها للابتكار والتنمية؟

The WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) represents a major shift in international IPR protection rule making by limiting WTO Members discretion with respect to the use of IP as a means for the promotion of innovation and development. The main characteristics of this shift are: Increasing privatization of knowledge & the corresponding shrinkage of the public domain, expanding IP protection to cover products & processes in all sectors including pharmaceuticals, agriculture and food industry; and recently a strong tendency to shift the focus of IPR protection to research inputs through protection of data bases, patenting of research tools, rules on data exclusivity and Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs). The IP policy arena has become the main issue in global, regional and bilateral negotiations. There is a common tendency in these agreements for protectable subject matter to be expanded, for new rights to be added, and for further harmonization of IPRs. As a consequence of this tendency developing countries’ governments are increasingly pressured to harmonize their IPR regimes in line with standards of protection of the most technologically advanced countries. This paper focuses on the above cited issues and examines the role of the State in the developing world. The core concern is that developing countries’ governments have no longer the policy options and flexibilities in the IP policy field that developed countries earlier relied upon to serve their national development objectives. It is argued that the emerging global IPR regime will place severe constraints on the policy space available to them to design and implement IP policies that are conducive to their development objectives.