The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international legal agreement and a multilateral treaty between all member nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) between 1986–1994, signed on April 15, 1994, and came into effect on January 1, 1995. The agreement was created to solve the problem of widely varying intellectual property (IP) protection standards across countries, which had become a source of tension in international trade.
TRIPS works by establishing minimum standards for the protection and enforcement of various IP rights, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, and geographical indications. Key mechanisms include the principles of National Treatment (Article 3) and Most-Favored-Nation Treatment (Article 4). For patents, it mandates a minimum protection term of 20 years (Article 33) and requires protection for inventions in all fields of technology. It connects to the Berne Convention and the Paris Convention, incorporating their substantive provisions.
In India, compliance with TRIPS led to significant legislative changes, such as the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005, which introduced product patents in pharmaceuticals, replacing the earlier process patent regime. A crucial related concept is the Doha Declaration of 2001, which clarified that the agreement should be interpreted to promote public health and access to medicines. This led to an amendment in 2005, which entered into force in 2017, adding Article 31bis to make permanent a waiver allowing countries with insufficient manufacturing capacity to import generic pharmaceuticals produced under a special compulsory license.