This handbook provides a comprehensive and non-technical explanation of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), later legal instruments, current policy issues and the relationship between TRIPS and public health. It is aimed at an audience including government officials and policy-makers, non-governmental organizations, academics and students.

This handbook describes the historical and legal background to the TRIPS Agreement, its role in the WTO and its institutional framework and reviews the following areas: general provisions and basic principles; copyright and related rights; trademarks; geographical indications; patents; industrial designs, layout-designs, undisclosed information and anti-competitive practices; enforcement of IPRs; dispute settlement in the context of the TRIPS Agreement; TRIPS and public health; and current TRIPS issues. It contains a guide to TRIPS notifications by WTO members and describes how to access and make use of the official documentation relating to the TRIPS Agreement and related issues. Furthermore, it includes the legal texts of the TRIPS Agreement and the relevant provisions of the WIPO conventions referred to in it, as well as subsequent relevant WTO instruments.

This handbook offers a detailed explanation of the rules and procedures of the WTO dispute settlement system.

NAture of obligations, principles and objectives; Substantive obligations; Intellectual property rights and competition; Enforcemente, maintenance and acquisition of rights; Interpretation and dispute settlement and prevention; Transitional and institutional arragements.

The TRIPS Agreement was implemented in the WTO to gain access to a functioning dispute settlement mechanism that could authorize trade sanctions. Yet TRIPS and the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding are based on systems that developed independently in WIPO and GATT. In this book, Matthew Kennedy exposes the challenges created by the integration and independence of TRIPS within the WTO by examining how this trade organization comes to grips with intellectual property disputes. He contrasts the way intellectual property disputes between governments have been handled before and after the establishment of the WTO. Based on practical experience, this book provides a comprehensive review of the issues that arise under the DSU, TRIPS, GATT 1994 and other WTO agreements in intellectual property matters. These range from procedural pitfalls to substantive treaty interpretation and conflicts as well as remedies, including cross-retaliation.

This guide to the WTO Customs Valuation Agreement is based on the authors' experiences of teaching its finer points to customs officials and policy-makers around the world. Covering the methods of valuation and the provisions on enforcement, implementation and dispute settlement, the authors give practical examples, explain interpretative decisions of national and international customs bodies, and analyse the history of its negotiation. Written as a learning tool, it helps both new and experienced policy-makers, customs officials, importers and exporters to gain a deeper understanding of the Agreement's function and aims.

This book analyzes how today's system of international trade law and international economic relations has evolved over the last six decades. Focusing on the major innovations that came with the inception of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with its various agreements in 1994, it also provides in-depth commentary on the intense debate over important matters that remain unsettled. Topics covered include the WTO dispute settlement mechanism; the General Agreement on Trade in Services (OATS); the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMS); intellectual property rights – the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS); areas still covered by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1947; the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) concept; special provisions relating to agriculture and textiles; sanitary and phytosanitary measures; technical barriers to trade; pre-shipment inspection; and import licensing procedures. The book would be an excellent resource for scholars as well as practitioners working in the field of international arbitration and trade laws.