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Agreement On Aspects Related To Trade and Intellectual Property Rights
The agreement on aspects related to trade and intellectual property rights is part of the GATT agreement ratified by Egypt on March 20th 1995 pursuant to the President decree 72/1995. the importance of GATT goes back to the inclusion of a big number of countries and accordingly the big size of global trade exchange included (about 90% of the size of global trade).
Size of trade increased 16 times compared to the size before GATT according to WTOs' reports. But the important question is, to whom does this increase go, who makes use of this agreement and on the expense of whom???
This agreement is one of the new developments in the field of trade agreements to ratify the agreement on aspects related to trade in intellectual property rights. After the great technological development in recent years and realising that this technological development is the result of the intellectual production "researches and studies" which represent beside manpower a proportion of production costs, especially in the developed countries. The discussion on intellectual property rights related to trade began in Uruguay in a trial to cross the big deference in measurements followed by countries for the protection of intellectual property rights and to eliminate the violation of the intellectual property rights of the big developed countries. It was agreed to put international rules and calibrations for the protection of intellectual property rights, such as patents on inventions, printing rights, performance rights, trademarks, industrial designs and designs of silicon ships used in computers. It was agreed to put the agreement into force one year after establishing WTO. As for the developing countries and those countries that are in the phase of economic transformation, the agreement enters into force five or ten years after establishing WTO. This period is called permissibility period for these countries so that they can restructure themselves according to the rules and calibrations agreed upon.