Ideas and information have gained a tremendous importance in the realm of trade. The worth of new medicines and other high technology products lies in the amount of invention, innovation, research, design and testing involved in them. Not only Industrial or artisanal products but for that matter any kind of production and consumption based industry be it films, music recordings, books, computer software and on-line services are able to keep their business rolling because of the uniqueness and creativity they contain, and not necessarily because of the raw material that is used in their production. Many products that used to be traded as low-technology goods or commodities now contain a higher proportion of innovation and design in their form and performance — for example brand named clothes. Herein comes the question of patenting the individual’s ideas and most importantly the very output of the industry for the very reason that the authenticity of the creator remains untouched.

Creators can be provided with the right to prevent others from using their ideas, designs or other creations — and to use that right to negotiate a penalty in return for others using them. These are “intellectual property rights”, for example books, paintings and films come under copyright; inventions can be patented; brand names and product logos can be registered as trademarks; and so on. Governments and parliaments have given creators these rights as an incentive to produce ideas that would in turn benefit society in the longer run.

The extent of protection and enforcement of these rights vary widely; and as intellectual property has become more important in trade, these differences became a source of upheaval in international economic relations. The WTO’s TRIPS Agreement is an attempt to narrow the gaps in the way that these rights are protected all over, and to bring them under common international rules. It establishes minimum levels of protection that each government has to give to the intellectual property of fellow WTO members. In doing so, it strikes a balance between the long-term benefits and possible short-term costs to society. Society benefits in the long term when intellectual property protection encourages creation and invention, especially when the period of protection expires and the creations and inventions enter the public sphere.