Conflict Rules and Integration Principles in the International IP System

Abstract

This chapter first looks at the (few) formal conflict rules in the international intellectual property (IP) system. It focusses on those found in the Trade Related Aspects of International Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. It then assesses those rules and principles that are not about directly allowing other international norms to prevail, but rather indirectly allow states implementing IP treaties and adjudicative bodies interpreting them to take into account external norms and the interests and objectives they protect. Next, the chapter provides an overview of three different areas where the international IP system has either provided specific responses to its intersections with other areas of international law, or where such a response is under negotiation in international IP fora. Finally, this chapter turns to the main horizontal tool in TRIPS and other IP treaties that allows states to take into account other interests and objectives that coincide or conflict with IP protection: the so called ‘three-step-test’.