Assumption 3. TRIPS Agreement Is Designed to Balance Rights-Holders and Users

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) is often understood as a framework for stronger IP protection. That is partly right — it sets minimum standards that WTO Members must implement in domestic law. But its objectives clause makes clear that protection is not the only goal.

Article 7 — Objectives The protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology, to the mutual advantage of producers and users of technological knowledge and in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare, and to a balance of rights and obligations.

Article 7 frames IP protection as a means to an end: promoting innovation and enabling the transfer of technology, for the benefit of both producers (rights-holders) and users. IP rules that restrict access without advancing those goals are harder to justify under this framework.

For this project, this assumption has two implications. First, it confirms that limitations and exceptions to IP rights — such as exceptions for research, text-and-data mining, or interoperability — are a legitimate part of the TRIPS framework rather than a deviation from it. Second, it provides a basis for assessing whether an IP rule is working as intended or is creating an unintended barrier to services trade.