Advantages:

The main advantage of the TRIPS agreement is that it protects companies that have spent millions on research and development (R&D), allowing them to recoup their investment in new technologies.  It also encourages them to further invest in R&D, knowing that their investment is protected and will reap financial reward.  TRIPS is a global accord that further brings the global economy into a system of order and stability.  Russia wants very much to join the WTO but when it does, it will be required to enforce TRIPS and curtail its expansive counterfeit market.   Since securing membership in the WTO in 2001, China is still making the transition, gradually curtailing counterfeit products, and increasing law and order in its marketplace.

TRIPS does not refer to, or incorporate, any pre-existing intellectual property agreements, such as the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV).  UPOV allows plant breeders to patent new hybrid varieties of seed and GMOs, forcing smallholder subsistence farmers to buy their seed annually, rather than save some from the previous year’s crop.  TRIPS member nations have significant leeway to balance IPRs against their national interests.

TRIPS is a work in progress.  Presently, developing nations may abide by its minimum requirements, allowing, for example, some harvesting and sharing of seeds, which was not allowed under the 1991 UPOV agreement (UPOV91).  In theory, IPRs are also intended to protect innovations emerging from developing countries.  This may be an advantage for a small number of rapidly developing countries, like India.  

Disadvantages:

TRIPS can create problems because many developing nations, eager for foreign investment and increased market access, fear alienating US investors if they fail to adopt the stricter UPOV91 provisions, for which U.S. firms have aggressively lobbied.  This tension exemplifies the classic one-sided power relationship between developing and developed countries.  The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), comprised of 30 of the wealthiest industrialized countries, has coerced poorer nations into signing TRIPS as a condition for economic “co-operation”.  However, TRIPS produces little economic advantages for most of the peoples of the world and, in fact, IPRs may be curtailing the development of many nation states.

Protecting the IPRs of corporate bodies in agreements like NAFTA and TRIPS also protects their right to set high prices in the absence of competition.  For example, many countries do not have access to less expensive generic drugs, including drugs for treating HIV/AIDS, because IPRs restrict those nations from producing reasonably-priced copies of the original drugs.  The Japanese and East Asian models of development were based on low levels of IP protection.  Copied products contributed significantly to their gross domestic product (GDP), and their burgeoning economies. This dilemma spans many fields, including chemicals, seeds, processed foods, and pharmaceuticals, and is a source of political strife between U.S.-based private sector interests and the interests of many developing nations.

India provides a graphic example of this public vs. private struggle.  Farmers there are compelled to buy high-yield Green Revolution hybrid seeds which depend on more artificial fertilizers, pesticides and water than other varieties.  Consequently, Indian farmers often accumulate significant debt which, ideally, is paid back at harvest time.  If the crop fails, however, due to flooding, drought, or pests, the farmer’s land is seized by the moneylender.  Despondent and without hope, thousands of peasant farmers have committed suicide in recent years.  If IPRs were relaxed, farmers would be able to save seed from year-to-year, or share it amongst themselves.  Currently, these simple, traditional practices are in violation of TRIPS.