among the agreements that became effective at the establishment of the WTO in 1995 was the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The TRIPS Agreement sets a minimum uniform standard to protect intellectual property rights in eight areas: copyright and related rights; trademarks; geographical indications; industrial designs; patents; layout-designs (topographies) of integrated circuits; protection of undisclosed information; and control of anti-competitive practices in contractual licenses.

Under the TRIPS Agreement, patents provide protection for twenty years “for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided they are new, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application” (Article 27:1). Certain provisions give governments some discretion to refuse to grant patents for public health reasons.

The signing of the TRIPS Agreement was a celebrated achievement for developed countries, the main producers of technological knowledge. African and other developing countries, on the other hand, had all along been opposed to and wary of an agreement that might adversely affect their access to generic and cheaper medicines and hamper their adoption of new technology. But concerted pressure from developed countries (Abbott, 2002) and promises that national emergencies and the need to protect public health would override the TRIPS Agreement rules brought developing countries to the signing table, although reluctantly. Moreover, Article 7 of the TRIPS Agreement gave developing countries some assurance with its stipulation that: