TRIPs.abbr. Patents. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, a treaty that harmonized and strengthened the intellectual-property laws of its signatories by linking the obligation to protect the intellectual-property rights of other members’ citizens with a mechanism for settling international trade disputes. • TRIPs was negotiated at the 1994 Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). More than 130 nations are parties to the agreement. In the field of patents, TRIPs standardized patentable subject matter to include medicines, required testing for nonobviousness and utility, protected patentees from infringing imports, and all but eliminated compulsory licenses. In response to the agreement, Congress (1) changed patent terms to 20 years from the date of application, rather than 17 years from the date of issue; (2) allowed foreign filers to prove priority by inventive efforts that preceded filing; (3) widened the definition of infringement to cover offering for sale and importing; and (4) permitted provisional applications, with brief descriptions and no claims, to establish priority. 33 I.L.M. 1197. — Also written TRIPS.
— Also termed TRIPs Agreement.
“Articles 1–8 of TRIPs include the basic principles of national treatment and most-favoured-nation treatment. That is, each Member must give to the nationals of other Members treatment no less favourable than that given to its own nationals, and must give to the nationals of all Members the same privileges as are given to the nationals of any Member. Thus, subject to certain exemptions, bilateral agreements between Members should no longer be permitted.” Philip W. Grubb, Patents for Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology 31 (3d ed. 1999).
译员圣强，国际仲裁与争端解决专业，专注翻译各种与
跨境争议有关的法律文件。
