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J.H. Reichman, From Free Riders to Fair Followers: Global Competition Under the TRIPS Agreement, 29 N.Y.U. J. INT’L L. & POL. 11 (1997).
The Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations produced the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which established a basic framework for the protection of specified intellectual creations. The worldwide implementation of TRIPS, however, is not guaranteed because compliance by any individual state depends on its own national policies. The author argues that, with respect to developing nations, there are many potential gains in complying with the TRIPS Agreement, especially in light of the growing tendency of developed nations to adopt anti-competitive, highly protectionist industrial policies in reaction to the prospect of rapid economic growth among developing countries. In this article, the author advocates a “five-pronged, pro-competitive strategy” for compliance with the Agreement that could aid developing nations in their quest for technological skills and information while implementing international minimum standards of intellectual property protection in good faith. The author concludes with an analysis of the likelihood that the TRIPS Agreement will produce a balancing of interests between developed and developing nations, and a reminder that any state of affairs which falls short of such an equilibrium will benefit developed nations more than developing nations.
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