For several years, research at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law (MPI) - in collaboration with experts from all over the world - has examined the trend of bilateral and regional agreements that include provisions on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights. By building on this research, the following principles – express core concerns regarding the use of IP provisions as a bargaining chip in international trade negotiations, the increasing comprehensiveness of international IP rules and the lack of transparency and inclusiveness in the negotiating process; and – recommend international rules and procedures that can achieve a better, mutually advantageous and balanced regulation of international IP. These principles emanate from several consultations within the MPI and especially from a workshop that was held with external experts in October 2012 in Munich, Germany. They represent the views of those first signatories and are open to signature by scholars who share the objectives of the Principles
This paper, after providing a brief historical overview of the ways international agreements deal with public health-related IPRs, analyses the TRIPS-plus trend in Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and its impact on access-to-medicines policies. It focuses on FTAs concluded by the USA and the Member states of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) with a number of developing countries and their provisions on patents and test data protection. New obligations in this field go well beyond the TRIPS minimum standards and may seriously affect access in developing countries to affordable generic pharmaceutical products.
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