Abstract

Intellectual property rights (IPR) have been defined as ideas, inventions, and creative expressions based on which there is a public willingness to bestow the status of property. IPR provide certain exclusive rights to the inventors or creators of that property, in order to enable them to reap commercial benefits from their creative efforts or reputation. There are several types of intellectual property protection like patent, copyright, trademark, etc. Patent is recognition for an invention, which satisfies the criteria of global novelty, non-obviousness, and industrial application. IPR is prerequisite for better identification, planning, commercialization, rendering, and thereby protection of invention or creativity. Each industry should evolve its own IPR policies, management style, strategies, and so on depending on its area of specialty. Pharmaceutical industry currently has an evolving IPR strategy requiring a better focus and approach in the coming era. Recently, intellectual property rights (IPRs) has become one of the hottest, most significant issues of trade negotiations. Despite the continued claim that IPRs facilitate research activities and encourage technology transfer, the impact of IPRs on socio-economic development process of developing countries has evidently reflected in many areas, including health, agriculture and education. IPRs will no doubt continue to have a significant impact on developing countries for many years to come. The developing countries have faced the challenge of constraint optimization on how to implement the WTO TRIPS Agreement in such a way to minimize the socio-economic costs and maximize the national benefits. The third world states are now facing increased pressure toward higher standards of IPRs protection (i.e. the so-called TRIPS-plus). The attempts of the developed countries to evolve the TRIPS-plus regime, which appears in the form of free trade agreement (FTA), provide opportunities for those countries to negotiate rules and commitments that go beyond what was not possible on the multilateral level. By entering into an FTA with the developed countries, the developing countries see some advantages in tariff reductions of agricultural, clothing and other products, but at the same time it closes down the opportunity for the latter to put forward the issues of their concern through the WTO including the harmonization of TRIPS and CBD, access to medicines, and protection of genetic resources, farmers’ rights and traditional knowledge.

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