Regulation of Technology Transfer Agreements in Developing Countries: An Opportunity to Exercise TRIPS Policy Space?

Juliana Krueger Pela, Regulation of Technology Transfer Agreements in Developing Countries: An Opportunity to Exercise TRIPS Policy Space?, GRUR International, Volume 72, Issue 11, November 2023, Pages 1007–1008, https://doi.org/10.1093/grurint/ikad091

Extract

For decades, technology transfer agreements (TTAs) have been regarded as ‘one of the main mechanisms through which developing countries could advance in their development process’ (Carlos Maria Correa, ‘Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights: A Commentary on the TRIPS Agreement’, 2020, 376).

Based on this assumption, from the 1970s through the 1990s, developing countries attempted to strongly regulate TTAs. Such a strategy was adopted at the international and local levels alike.

In 1985, under the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), a Code of Conduct on Technology Transfer Agreements was drafted with the purpose of ‘encourage[ing] transfer of technology transactions, particularly those involving developing countries, under conditions where bargaining positions of the parties to the transactions are balanced in such a way as to avoid abuses of a stronger position and thereby to achieve mutually satisfactory agreements.’ The Code’s backbone was the so-called ‘restrictive business practices in Technology Transfer Agreements’, such as grant-back clauses, challenges to validity, exclusive dealing, restrictions on research, restrictions on use of personnel, and price-fixing. Despite the efforts made by developing countries, the implementation of this Code of Conduct has been unsuccessful at the international level.