The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
TRIPS is an international agreement on property rights that came into effect in 1995.
The World Trade Organization’s website describes TRIPS as “to date, the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property.” and states that:
“The areas of intellectual property that it covers are: copyright and related rights (i.e. the rights of performers, producers of sound recordings and broadcasting organizations); trademarks including service marks; geographical indications including appellations of origin; industrial designs; patents including the protection of new varieties of plants; the layout-designs of integrated circuits; and undisclosed information including trade secrets and test data.”
The three main features of TRIPS are its sections on standards, enforcement, and dispute settlement. In a way, it is an umbrella agreement, since it requires that its participants agree to and uphold the tenets of several other agreements, treaties and conventions. These are the main conventions of the WIPO, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (Paris Convention) and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic in their most recent versions.