Создание ВТО и эволюция системы международного сотрудничества по вопросам интеллектуальной собственности

Abstract

This article investigates the issues of improvement of international cooperation system in intellectual property issues as a result of the establishment of World Trade Organization (WTO) following GATT Uruguay Round. One of the trends in the activities of that organization has become the providing of cooperation among the Member States on the intelectual property issues. According to article TI of the Agreement, establishing WTO, the Agreement on Trade Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (ATAIPR) is its integral part and is obligatory for all members of WTO, The inclusion of intellectual property issues into competence of new international organization is an extremely important event in the development of international cooperation on intellectual property issues. The organizational centre of international cooperation on intellectual property issues is the World International Property Organization (WIPO). In order to answer the question how the cooperation on intellectual property issues will be simultaneously realized in the WIPO and WTO frameworks and in what way the activities of the two organizations will be interconnected, the article gives a comparative analysis of ATAIPR regulations and international agreements on intellectual property issues, which are in the competence of WIPO and analyses the WTO institutional mechanisms, which allow to increase the effectiveness of international cooperation on intellectual property issues. When analysing ATAIPR the main attention is devoted to the following problems: the use of the classical principle of trade barriers removal, which is regarded to be the principle of the most favoured treatment of international cooperation on intellectual property issues, the increase of the level of protection of various objects of intellectual property compared with the requirements of the Paris Convention on protection of industrial property, the Bern Convention on protectionof literary and artistic works, tiie Rome Convention on protection of performers' interests, phonogramme producers, radio and TV bodies, the Washington Treaty on Intellectual Property with regard to topology оГ integral microschem.es, the International Convention on protection of selective achievements and the Madrid Agreement on stopping of false or misleading references to the products source. The analysis of WTO institutional mechanisms is realized in the article along two directions: the organizational stnicture of WTO and the place of the Specialized Council on ATAIPR therein, and also rules and procedures of dispute arbitration on intellectual property issues among the WTO members. On the basis of the analyses of the above mentioned problems the article makes a conclusion about a fundamental change of international cooperation system on intellectual property issue in connection with the transition of int. prop, issues into the sphere of international trade cooperation with the substantial increase of standards of protection of intellectual property and establishment of new institutional mechanisms, able to provide the stability and predictability of the development of international relations on international property issues.