ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to study the justification for an extended IP rights protection under the TRIPS Agreement through an analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of the IP rights and the patent regime. The chapter engages in a jurisprudential enquiry of the justification of IP rights beginning with the traditional views and economic foundations of IP laws, and the expansion of IP laws to protect pharmaceutical patents, before seeking to balance the modern-day IP rights policy vis-à-vis human rights in the pursuit of access to affordable medicines. In the course of the enquiry, the key international conventions and domestic legislations from the developed nations will also be studied. It will be argued that the TRIPS Agreement is a major obstacle that the developing countries and the LDCs have been made to face as members of the WTO (World Trade Organisation), with no end in sight for their miseries, and that the only possible solution is a review or an amendment of the TRIPS Agreement.
