WTO Agreement on TRIPS

The TRIPS Agreement is the WTO agreement that establishes binding minimum standards for protecting and enforcing intellectual property rights. It does not create one uniform global law: each member may choose how to implement these standards within its legal system while retaining specified policy space for public welfare.

Minimum standards of protection

TRIPS prescribes minimum rules on the availability, scope and duration of intellectual property rights, together with national treatment and most-favoured-nation treatment.

• Copyright standards incorporate most substantive obligations of the Berne Convention and treat computer programs as literary works.
• Trademarks, including service marks, must be protected; registrations must last at least seven years and be indefinitely renewable.
• Patents must generally be available for products and processes in all fields of technology when they are new, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application. The minimum patent term is 20 years from filing.
• Members must protect geographical indications, industrial designs, integrated-circuit layout designs and undisclosed information, subject to the Agreement's conditions.
• Members must provide enforcement procedures, including civil remedies, provisional measures, border measures and criminal procedures for specified wilful counterfeiting and copyright piracy on a commercial scale.

Public-interest safeguards and flexibilities

Articles 7 and 8 connect intellectual-property protection with social welfare and permit TRIPS-consistent measures necessary to protect public health. The Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health, 2001 confirms that TRIPS should support access to medicines for all.

• Under Article 31, compulsory licensing or government use may be authorized without the patent holder's consent, subject to conditions such as adequate remuneration and review; prior negotiation may be waived in specified circumstances.
• The Article 31bis system permits pharmaceutical exports under compulsory licence to eligible members with insufficient manufacturing capacity.
• Articles 6 and 30 respectively allow members to choose exhaustion regimes, enabling parallel imports, and to create limited exceptions satisfying a three-part test, including regulatory-use exceptions.
• Members retain room under Article 27 to apply patentability standards and specified exclusions, while least-developed countries receive special transition arrangements for pharmaceutical patents and related protections.

Implementation in India

India implements TRIPS through legislation including the Patents Act, 1970. Section 3(d) restricts patents for new forms of known substances unless they show enhanced efficacy; Sections 84 and 92 provide for compulsory licensing, while Section 107A protects regulatory-use activities and specified parallel imports.