Competition law in technology transfer under the Trips agreement

Författare

Tu Nguyen

Summary, in English

The TRIPS Agreement allows WTO members to appropriately enact and apply national competition law to address IPR-related anti-competitive practices. However, application of national competition law to anti-competitive restraints in technology transfer agreements and to abuses of refusal to transfer technology varies from developed countries to developing countries and even between developed countries. Developing countries currently under-enforce their competition legislations in this area while they are net importers of technology. Although they have to comply with high standards of IPR protection, they seem not to use competition law-related flexibilities under the TRIPS Agreement to promote dissemination and transfer of IPR-intensive technology from developed countries. Therefore, to protect benefits of developing countries in globalization of IPR protection, competition rules under the TRIPS Agreement should be reasonably detailed and enforced in developing countries. However, in any event, national competition law is antitrust, neither anti-IPR nor anti-trade.

The research, accordingly, has two purposes. The first is investigating competition law in international technology transfer under the TRIPS Agreement with experiences from developed and developing countries. The second is drawing implications concerning these legal issues for developing countries, in which Viet Nam is a focus.

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