International Intellectual Property

Several major agreements include more than one area of IP. There is also overlap between intellectual property protection and international trade agreements. The following major treaties and agreements regulate more than one discrete IP subject.

• Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
  The TRIPS provisions are comprehensive in IP coverage, and are administered by the WTO. If viewing the agreement text in print, care should be taken to confirm that the source is updated to include the latest and pending revisions. The U.S. has accepted the latest (2005) major amendment.
• Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property The 1883 Paris Convention is also comprehensive in scope, excluding copyright. The United States acceded to the treaty in 1887.
• NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement Chapter 17 covers the various types of intellectual property. NAFTA took effect in 1994.
• Other U.S. Free Trade Agreements Listing from the U.S. Trade Representative. The proposed Trans Pacific Partnership also includes IP rights provisions, especially at Chapter 18. See a history summary of the TPP at this OAS page.

•  Other IP Treaties - WIPO
A very large list of regional and bilateral IP related agreements is provided in this WIPO Lex  page.

•  IPRs Online - UN ICTSD
Listings for Regional and Bilateral agreements with IP related aspects.

•  SICE Trade Agreements - OAS
Includes the CAFTA, Caricom, Andean Community and MercoSur agreements as well as numerous others and the text of TRIPS and other WTO agreements.

• Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
  The Berne Convention, first signed in 1886, is the basis of current international Copyright law. The United States joined the Convention in 1988, with an effective date of March, 1989.
• WIPO Copyright Treaty The 1996 WCT is technically a "...special agreement under the Berne Convention that deals with the protection of works and the rights of their authors in the digital environment...". It is meant to extend the Berne protections to computer programs and databases. The U.S. has amended its copyright law by enacting the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and other legislation, to comply with the both the WCT and the WPPT.
• WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) Adopted in 1996, entered into force in 2002. The WPPT does not derogate the 1961 Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations.

• Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (Madrid Protocol)
  The Madrid Protocol establishes an international trademark registration system for member states. The U.S. acceded to the treaty in 2003.
• Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks
  Ratified by the U.S. effective 1984.
• Trademark Law Treaty
  Aims to standardize trademark registration procedures. The U.S. ratified the Treaty in 2000.
• Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
  A multilateral international agreeement to regulate trademark counterfeiting, generic drugs, and copyright piracy. Signed by the original parties in 2011, the agreement faces wide opposition and has not entered into force as of May, 2015.

A more extensive list of trademark related agreements can be found at this page of the International Trademark Association (INTA).

• Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)
  The PCT makes it possible to seek patent protection for an invention simultaneously in each of a large number of countries by filing an "international" patent application. The actual patent, however, still needs to be sought and issued by the individual national authority. The U.S. ratified the treaty in 1975.
• Patent Law Treaty (PLT)
  The aim of the PLT is to harmonize... procedures in respect of national and regional patent applications. The U.S. signed the treaty in 2000. The USPTO pro-actively began to adjust its procedures prior to the 2013 ratification date.
• European Patent Convention
  The 38 countries of the European Patent Organization have centralized and unified methods for patent procedures, including related litigation. The Convention is administered by the European Patent Office (EPO).

•  Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration
The U.S. is not a a party to this agreement.

•  Madrid Agreement for the Repression of False or Deceptive Indications of Source on Goods
The U.S. is not a a party to this agreement.

•  NAFTA, Article 1712
Binds the signatory parties, including the U.S.

•  Act of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants
The U.S. accepted the Convention in 1980.

WIPO Administered Treaties:

The World Intellectual Property Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations system of organizations.

Agreements on Designs, Classification schemes, Circuits and others can be found on the WIPO Administered Treaties page.

The WIPO Lex Treaties tab lets you search for treaties by type, organization, and Subject matter/Topic.

The OAS/SICE website, in its Disciplines > Intellectual Property Rights  tab provides an interactive database/spreadsheet hybrid.

The matrix consists of 70 different trade agreements listed in the rows. The agreements, of course, all involve OAS countries. NAFTA and CAFTA are included.

25 different field types of IP provisions are entered in the columns. The 25 type columns can be sorted ascending/descending, making it easier to determine if an IP area is involved in a certain agreement, and all the other agreements that also contain those provisions.