On Article 30 Of TRIPS Agreement

General exceptions of patent are important part of patent law which intended mainly to balance the private interests of the patent-holder and interests of the third parties. Countries in the world provide these exceptions respectively, but the harmonization by TRIPS agreement did not adopt this one by one manner. In return, article 30 of TRIPS agreement adopted a general method, setting out the principles and requirements in providing and enforcing these general exceptions of the WTO members. The language in article 30 is very ambiguous and caused many disputes. In view of the above considerations, this paper studies article 30 of TRIPS agreement systematically.This paper is divided into four parts, including 10,000 words or so.The first chapter examines some basic problems of article 30 of TRIPS agreement. Firstly, this chapter briefly introduces some knowledge of rights limitation of patent rights. Secondly the contents, characters, functions and models of legislation of article 30 will be explored. Finally, this chapter sheds some lights on the rationales of article 30.The specific interpretation and application of article 30 of TRIPS agreement will be taken into consideration in the third chapter. This chapter firstly demonstrates that the non-discrimination rule in article 27.1 of TRIPS agreement should apply to article 30 and its application has some limitations. Then the detail interpretation of article 30 is examined, including the translation and method of interpretation of article 30 and interpretation of some important words in article 30.The third chapter discusses several main general exceptions of patent, including prior use exception, experimental use exception, Bolar exception, rights exhaustion and parallel imports exception, rights abuse exception. The rationales, practices of legislation and jurisprudence concerning these exceptions will be examined in this chapter. In addition, this chapter briefly introduces exceptions of temporarily enteringone country, preparations of prescriptions, uses of none-beneficial purpose, innocent infringement.The fourth chapter firstly analyses the implications of TRIPS agreement on developing countries, then introduces the amendments of patent law in China and puts forward some countermeasures concerning the general exceptions of patent.