The first amendment to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) enters into force today, after two-thirds of World Trade Organization members accepted it. It is the first time a multilateral WTO agreement has been amended.
Key points
- Inserts a new Article 31bis into the TRIPS Agreement.
- Allows compulsory licences to be granted for producing generic medicines for export to countries unable to manufacture them.
- Makes permanent a waiver first agreed in 2003.
- The rest of TRIPS, including minimum standards for patents, copyright, trade marks and trade secrets, is unchanged.
- Article 39 continues to protect undisclosed information that has been subject to reasonable steps to keep it secret.
TRIPS remains the international baseline for intellectual property protection. For UK organisations, it is a reminder that trade secret protection depends on reasonable security measures to keep information confidential.
Source: Amendment of the TRIPS Agreement enters into force (WTO)
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