Intellectual Property Law: International Commercialisation of IPR

Wall Street Journal headlines on intellectual property.

IP-related news on the Financial Times.

Current IP developments in the Asia-Pacific region.

Topic on intellectual property on The Economist.

The Paris Convention is the very first international treaty in the field of patent law. It worked to establish fundamental principles and a permanent Union for the protection of patents, under which further development of international patent law became possible.

The PCT established an operational framework and a unique and common procedure for filing international patent applications, with publication of the applications and prior art search and optionally also preliminary examination, and harmonisation of the form and contents of international applications.

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international agreement administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO) that sets down minimum standards for many forms of intellectual property (IP) regulation as applied to nationals of other WTO Members. This site allows you to access the text of the TRIPs agreement and examine current TRIPs issues.

Free Trade Agreements represent a non-multilateral approach towards international intellectual property. More importantly, FTAs generally include intellectual property standards which go beyond what is required by international agreements administered by the World Intellectual Property Organisation. For example, the Australia-United States FTA includes in Chapter 17 distinct provisions on intellectual property rights which set a higher standard than the international minimum standard.