ABSTRACT
The Agreement of Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs Agreement) sets a minimum standard that has to be complied with by every signatory member of the World Trade Organization (cf supra). Despite the TRIPs Agreement, patent systems are far from harmonized. In an international framework, such discrepancies in policy instruments may have welfare effects. This chapter extends the model introduced in Chapter 10 so that welfare effects of differences in the non-obviousness standard (NOS) can be examined.
