The General Exception Clauses of the TRIPS Agreement Promoting Sustainable Development Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law Series

The general exception clauses of the TRIPS Agreement of the World Trade Organization permit exceptions to copyrights and to the rights conferred by trademarks, industrial designs and patents. These clauses are intended to facilitate access to diverse forms of proprietary knowledge and therefore foster the interdependent pillars of sustainable development: economic progress, realization of human rights and the conservation of the environment. In this book, Edson Beas Rodrigues, Jr argues that the TRIPS Agreement, in its current configuration, does not hinder the establishment of exceptions to intellectual property rights, devised to promote vital socioeconomic interests such as the freedom to carry out creative and inventive activities, freedom of expression, the strengthening of free competition, and increased access to educational materials by underprivileged students and to technical knowledge for humanitarian purposes.

Part I. Determining the Normative Meaning of the General Exception Clauses of the TRIPS Agreement: 1. The customary rules of treaty interpretation and the elements in light of which the general exception clauses of TRIPS shall be interpreted; 2. Determining the normative meaning of arts. 17, 26(2) and 30 of the TRIPS Agreement; 3. Determining the normative meaning of arts. 13 of the TRIPS Agreement and 9(2) of the Berne Convention; Part II. Putting to the Test the Capacity of the General Exception Clauses of the TRIPS Agreement to Promote the Pillars of Sustainable Development: 4. Patents and the R&D and the Genetic Diagnostic Test Exceptions; 5. Trademarks and the Parody and Criticism Exception; 6. Industrial designs and the Repair Exception; 7. Copyright and the Educational Exception for Underprivileged Students and Researchers.

Edson Beas Rodrigues, Jr is a lawyer based in Brazil. Between 2004 and 2010, he was a Research Fellow at the Instituto de Direito do Comércio Internacional e Desenvolvimento, in São Paulo, Brazil.