Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights - C Samuel

World Trade Organization (WTO) deals with the global rules of trade between nations. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.This organization is not simply a continuation the the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), it has a completely different character. GATT was a series of rules, a multilateral agreement without an institutional foundation and with just an ad hoc secretariat, originating from the attempt to establish an Industrial Trade Organization in the 1940s. The WTO is a permanent institution with its own secretariat. The GATT rules applied to trade in goods while the WTO covers not just goods, but also trade in services and trade-related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement seeks to provide increased multilaterally agreed protection for patents, copyrights, trademarks, industrial design, geographical indications, integrated circuits and undisclosed information (trade secrets)along the lines of the regulations existing in the developed countries, most notably the US. Has TRIPS reduced the amount of cross border crimes with Trinidad and Tobago? This was promoted in response to pressures from their corporate group to prevent developing countries from gaining unauthorized access to such technology thereby weakening the competitiveness of the developed countries. Intellectual Property rights are the rights given to persons over the creation of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time e.g. coconut oil became bad when the US was trying to project soya bean oil. Western science has contributed to people being misled because it was said that is bad for one's health because of cholesterol thus creating a market for their product. IPR is divided into two categories: (i) Industrial property which includes inventions (patents) trademarks, industrial designs and geographic indications of sources and (ii) copyright which includes literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures and architectural designs. Why is it important to protect Intellectual Property Rights? Trademarks are symbols, words and phrases that identify a product or company. It must be registered like a patent to protect it from use by others. Unlike most forms of intellectual property, trademarks don't expire as long as the requirements for filing for its continual use are met. One area which falls under trademarks is trade names. A company can own several trade marks in their business. However, they only have one trade name to distinguish themselves from their competitors. The name is independent of whatever the products are which the company sells under a particular trademark. e.g. The General Electric Company. General Electric Company is the registered trade name, with the registered trade marks GE and their monogram, Other areas under the umbrella concept of trademarks are franchises, such as Burger King and famous character names such as Mickey mouse. These can come from literature, pictoral matters or actual people, and are all used a recognizable figures in merchandizing. However there are protections for live people against unauthorized use of their names, images or other characteristics which are above the rights of intellectual property. This is generally covered under such rights as those to privacy and protection against libel or defamation. Trade secrets often consists of information which could be patentable, such as the formula for coco cola. However patents expire, whereas a trade secret, if it is not discovered, can continue to be used exclusively by a company for an indeterminate length of time, so some companies make the decision that it is better for the company not to patent the information. IPR and the North-South Debate over Plant Genetic Resources (PGR) Due to the widespread diffusion of biotechnology within the different industrial domains, the industrialized world has massively increased its demands for IP protection of living organisms. According to Khor the 'Gene Rush' has thus become a new version of the old 'Godl Rush' in the scramble for future profits., the genes of living organisms i.e. IPR are the basic 'raw material' of the new bio technologies.