ABSTRACT
With the arguable exception of Kuwait and Yemen, which still have in place some pre-TRIPS laws or laws with pre-TRIPS origins, the Gulf states now have intellectual property regimes which are generally TRIPS-compliant, even if they still show shortcomings in some matters of detail. The states have also demonstrated a general willingness to address the contentious issue of the enforcement of their intellectual property protection obligations – albeit still with mixed success. Yet, in common with other developing and least developed countries, they now face additional pressures from the major developed countries, and from the United States in particular, to adopt more comprehensive and higher standards of intellectual property protection that go well beyond those required by TRIPS – in other words, TRIPS-plus standards. The term ‘TRIPS-plus’ lacks precise definition, but has come into increasingly common usage in the debate on post-TRIPS intellectual property rights. It has been described, in a general sense, as ‘commitments which go beyond what is already included or consolidated in the TRIPS Agreement’, and more specifically as ‘both those activities aimed at increasing the level of protection for right holders beyond that which is given in the TRIPS Agreement and those measures aimed at reducing the scope or effectiveness of limitations on rights and exceptions under the TRIPS Agreement’.1
