Impact of TPP on International, Regional and Other Plurilateral IP Norm Setting

In the wake of recent signing of the U.S. led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) between twelve Pacific-Rim countries on 4 February 2016, need has arisen for analysing the impact of plurilateral intellectual property (IP) negotiations like TPP and Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) as opposed to that of the multilateral IP negotiations at forums like World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The paper describes the meaning of multilateral and plurilateral agreements and the reasons for the shift from former to the latter. It then analyses the negatives and positives of plurilateral agreements. Further, it provides a critical comparative analysis of some of the patent law provisions of the TPP and Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) to illustrate how the plurilateral IP agreements may take away the flexibilities that TRIPS allows to its members considering the different stages of development they are in and thereby adversely impact public interest. Lastly, the paper analyses the impact of the plurilateral negotiations, especially that of TPP, on multilateral, regional as well as other plurilateral IP-norm setting.