With the WTO TRIPS-Agreement, intellectual property issues have become an integral part of the world trading system. The Agreement probably represents the most significant and controversial development in world trade law. The Agreement is comprehensive in scope and contains standards for protection of a number of intellectual property rights as well as rules on the enforcement of such rights. Furthermore it closely links to the well-established traditional international system of the protection of intellectual property rights - the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization and related agreements, in particular the Paris and Berne Convention and the Madrid Agreement. This commentary covers the entire TRIPS-Agreement. It adopts a comparative perspective in highlighting related and similar provisions and developments in other international and regional instruments, such as the ones mentioned above and, for instance the European Patent Convention. The volume is based on a close cooperation between the Intellectual Property Law Center of the University of Düsseldorf and the Göttingen Institute for International Law and European Law, which aims at bringing together expertise in intellectual property law and and general international law and trade law. It is designed to meet the needs both of the WTO and the intellectual property community.
