Diverging after Convergence: The Evolution of International Intellectual Property System after TRIPS Agreement

To protect intellectual property rights, the international efforts showed its maximum strength and capacity through ratifying the universal TRIPS Agreement. But even by this convergence at international level, struggles between developed and developing countries about intellectual property protection at international level did not decline. Developing countries believed that it would be the last pace of international intellectual property system. Developed countries, on the other hand, envisioned TRIPS only contains minimum-standards provisions. So, developed nations dissatisfied with the level of protection introduced by TRIPS and by the way, thought the multilateral regime has presented its utmost capacity by this agreement, shifted the current multilateral level to bilateral and regional agreements to transplant themselves intellectual property standards.
Since then, lots of efforts have been made to harmonize intellectual property provisions in international stage. This multilateral approach to protect intellectual property rights began by Paris and Bern conventions and reached to its best by TRIPS agreement. Now, there is a complicated situation in international intellectual property norm-setting. What is going to happen after TRIPS agreement? Divergence or convergence? In this article, we try to answer this question by examining the origin of these changes and specify some significant results at the end.