Public Health, Intellectual Property, and the Trade and Investment Law Challenges to Australia and Uruguay’s Tobacco Packaging Laws

Abstract

The trade and investment disputes brought against Australia's tobacco plain packaging laws and Uruguay's large graphic health warnings and restrictions on tobacco brand variants are key cases on the relationship between public health and intellectual property. Both cases have been decided in favour of the respondent states, and they are important victories not only for tobacco control but for public health flexibilities in intellectual property agreements more broadly. Key points to take from the jurisprudence include: its confirmation that trademarks do not give trademark owners the right to use those trademarks to market harmful products, its clarification of the scope of intellectual property protections under international investment law, and its findings on the status of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health and on interpreting the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights coherently with public health more generally.