The TRIPS Agreement requires patent protection to be available for any invention in any field of technology in all WTO Member States. This provision is essentially aimed at pharmaceutical products, for which certain developing countries, as well as developed countries, had refused to grant patents. Because of the high prices of patented drugs and the large amount of expenditure required for research and development (R&D*) in the pharmaceutical field, some countries had chosen to imitate products patented in industrialized countries through reverse engineering*, in order to meet their national requirements for drugs at a lower cost and to develop their technology. Other countries with no pharmaceutical industry bought these copies of patented drugs at competitive prices.

This is similar to the practice adopted by many developed countries some years ago when their own pharmaceutical industry was not yet very highly developed.

Despite the positive contribution that the patent system may bring to public health by generating incentives for innovation, it should be pointed out that the emergence of a generic* drug sector in a number of developing countries represents a set of successful social policies that may be harder to duplicate under TRIPS.

The table below gives a detailed explanation of Article 27.

Henceforth, from the end of the transition periods, patent holders must be given the right and legal means to prevent imitation of a patented drug. If national regulations on patents do not provide it, or if it is not respected, the Member State in question may, pursuant to the disputes settlement process, be the subject of a complaint before the WTO Dispute Settlement Body*.