Trips Plus

Subject :Science and Technology

Context:

In over 100 bilateral investment treaties that the US signed, all of them have TRIPS-plus provisions which has caused problems across the globe.

Concept:

“TRIPS-plus” is an informal term for protection of intellectual property rights that goes beyond the requirements in the TRIPS Agreement.
These are higher levels of protection norms demanded by the developed countries that are not prescribed by the WTO’s TRIPs regime.
Although they are named as ‘TRIPS-Plus,’ they are not formally related to TRIPs.
Rather, the term is used to indicate that these requirements go beyond the minimum standards imposed by TRIPs.
Many developing countries who are members of FTAs are under pressure to enact these tougher conditions in their patent laws.
An example for advanced norms under TRIPs Plus is the protection demanded by developed countries for data exclusivity.
- Data exclusivity is the protection of clinical test data submitted to a regulatory agency to prove safety, quality and efficacy of a new drug, and preventing the generic drug manufacturers from relying on this data in their own applications. Such data exclusivity will stop generic drug manufacturers of developing countries from using these data while applying for licenses.