Intellectual Property

The international intellectual property (IP) system remains one of the areas of law in which norm-setting through the treaty method is at its most prolific. This chapter discusses the trend of prolific treaty-making in IP, a trend that is at variance with the generally slow pace of treaty-making in other areas of international law. It reviews norm-setting through treaty-making in the IP field and discusses the historical and political forces that have shaped the international IP system today. The IP system nevertheless needs to adopt non-treaty means of norm-setting or international cooperation. Certain platforms and other non-treaty means are in vogue now and will likely increasingly be used in the IP setting. This chapter also describes some of the new and innovative means of non-treaty forms of international cooperation in the IP arena, and ends with the prediction that the multilateral system of cooperation in IP will continue to be enhanced through a combination of treaty and non-treaty forms of collaboration.