TRIPS Agreement

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, known as the TRIPS Agreement, is Annex 1C of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, signed in Marrakesh, Morocco on 15 April 1994. It came into effect on 1 January 1995 and is described by the World Trade Organization as the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property. It covers copyright and related rights, trademarks, geographical indications, industrial designs, patents including the protection of new plant varieties, the layout-designs of integrated circuits, and undisclosed information such as trade secrets. Its three main features are minimum standards of protection that each Member must provide, rules on the domestic enforcement of those rights through civil, administrative, border and criminal procedures, and the subjection of disputes between Members to the WTO dispute settlement procedures. It requires compliance with the main provisions of the Paris Convention and the Berne Convention, leaving out moral rights, and adds obligations of its own, so it is sometimes called a Berne and Paris-plus agreement. Developing countries were given longer periods to phase in the obligations.