The Intellectual Property Clauses In China’s Free Trade Agreements

With the increasing corporation in the field of international trade in goods and services,the corporation in intellectual property protection gradually becomes more and moreimportant in international economy. Many elastic clauses in TRIPS Agreement are favorableto developing countries. However, developed countries which are not satisfied with theprotection situation want to improve protection level by different means. Because of thefailure of Doha round negotiation, developed countries enact “TRIPS-plus” clauses in FreeTrade Agreements (hereinafter referred to as FTAs) which brings great pressure to economicdevelopment and IP protection of developing countries in recent years. China which is thebiggest developing countries as the member of TRIPS Agreement has many problems in itsFTAs Intellectual Property Clauses(Hereinafter referred to as FTAs IP Clauses). What is more,since the strategical framework of China’s FTAs Intellectual Property Protection is so weak, itis also confronted with the menace of “TRIPS-plus” clause. On the basis of TRIPS Agreement,this paper is to analyze the problems existed in China’s FTAs IP Clauses and the emerging“TRIPS-plus” clauses so as to provide reference for the future enacted FTAs IP clauses.This paper is divided into six parts:Part Ⅰ sketches out China’s FTAs IP Clauses. Historical method and Comparativeanalysis method are adopted in analyzing seven FTAs with IP Clauses. Moreover, every FTAwith IP Clauses is introduced. The focus of this paper is also presented in this part.Part Ⅱ introduces the General Provisions of Intellectual Property in China’s FTAs. Bycomparing the general provisions of Intellectual Property in China’s FTAs with that in TRIPSAgreement, the problems of structure and content are found and analyzed.Part Ⅲ analyzes substantive provisions in China’s FTAs intellectual property.Substantive provisions in China’s FTAs intellectual property are firstly introduced. Then,Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge, Copyright and Related Rights, andUndisclosed Information are analyzed in detail.Part Ⅳ describes the procedural provisions in China’s FTAs. The differences betweendispute settlement provisions and enforcement provisions of Intellectual Property in China’sFTAs and TRIPS Agreement are analyzed. Furthermore, the negative impact of “TRIPS-plus”clauses on our enforcement body and the existing problems of dispute settlement mechanism are proposed in this part.Part Ⅵ summarizes the existing problems of Intellectual Property provisions in ChinaFTAs. On the basis of the above provisions analysis, it is concluded that the overall problemsinclude no uniform model, inflexible expressions, loose expression and inflexibility of somearticles, and so forth.Part Ⅶ gives suggestion to improve the Intellectual Property Provisions in China FTAsfor the existing problems mentioned above.Last part is the conclusion.