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PHARMACEUTICALS AND THE WTO TRIPS AGREEMENT: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
The TRIPS Agreement sets minimum standards in the field of intellectual property (IP) protection
(such as copyrights, patents, and trademarks) that all WTO Member countries have to respect.
To achieve this goal, WTO Members have to modify their intellectual property laws to make
them consistent with the new WTO standards. For instance, the TRIPS Agreement states that all
patents shall be available for at least 20 years from the filing date, whereas before TRIPS the
patent term varied greatly among countries (7, 10, 17 or 20 years). All WTO Members have to
incorporate this 20-year patent term in their own patent law.
