ABSTRACT
Article 7 of the TRIPS Agreement states that 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’. This provision has no operative effect, but there has been significant agitation, particularly by NGOs to ‘operationalize’ this provision and impose positive obligations particularly upon industrialized countries at least to promote the transfer of technology to developing countries. In summary, Article 7 envisages that IPRs should contribute towards economic development. This in turn raises two threshold questions: (i) what is meant by economic development; and (ii) can IPR protection make a contribution to economic development?
