The central objectives of the TRIPS Agreement outlined in the preamble are the reduction of distortions and impediments to international trade as well as the desire to promote effective and adequate protection of IPR. Besides the emphasis on trade aspects of intellectual property and the emphasis on IPR as private rights, the preamble also recognises the fact that intellectual property seeks to foster public policy goals, including developmental and technological objectives.

The first part of the Agreement provides the general framework that is applicable to the substantive areas covered in the TRIPS. As mentioned above, one of the central characteristics of the TRIPS Agreement is that imposes minimum standards of protection. In other words, it seeks to harmonise national laws but does not provide for uniformity. Thus, in the specific case of the term of protection of patents, Article 33 makes it clear that a minimum period of twenty years is required, but it does not restrict countries from imposing higher limits, if they wish.

The Agreement also provides for the integration of significant parts of existing intellectual property conventions such as the Paris Convention and the Berne Convention ¹⁹. However, this does not imply similarity, and, in fact, there are significant differences between the TRIPS Agreement and a treaty like the Paris Convention, which did not seek to establish international standards of intellectual property protection but only to harmonise national systems of protection. In other words, the TRIPS Agreement incorporates existing standards and introduces internationally recognised minimum standards that may go beyond incorporated treaties.

Further, the TRIPS Agreement strengthens the principle of national treatment already outlined above in the context of the Paris Convention and introduces the concept of most-favoured-nation treatment to intellectual property. This is one of the direct links with other trade agreements of the WTO since the clause of the most-favoured-nation has been the cornerstone principle of the GATT since 1947 ²⁰. It provides that any advantage granted to a country on a bilateral basis must automatically be extended to all member states of the WTO. This may be of benefit to smaller countries, which benefit from concessions that bigger countries grant each other, but in the context of intellectual property, this is likely to be marginal since smaller and least developed countries are not likely to make much use of such advantages.

Another important issue referred to in the first part of the TRIPS is the exhaustion of IPR. Owing to divergences between negotiating states, no consensus could be found on the question of exhaustion. The issue is whether the first introduction of a patented product in the market by the patent owner or with the patent owner's consent exhausts the rights that can be claimed on the basis of the relevant patent. Let us highlight two main points of interest.

Notes and References

¹⁹ Article 2, TRIPS Agreement.
²⁰ Article 1, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1947/1994.