28

Analysis of the Political Processes for the Formation of theTRIPs Agreement-- With the Focus on the Pharmaceutical Industry and theComputer Industry in Japan, Europe, and the United States -Research Fellow: Momoko Nishimura
The purpose of this paper is to review from the perspective of international politics thedevelopments that led to the establishment of the TRIPs Agreement at the Uruguay Round of
GATT. While many earlier studies pointed out the influence of multinational companies on the
conclusion of the TRIPs Agreement, only a few of them examined the political process ofconcluding the Agreement in detail. Most of those studies that examined the political process at
all covered only the moves of the United States. This paper illustrated the corporate-government
relationships in Japan, Europe, etc., since the 1970s and analyzed how the political process andthe progress thereof influenced the formation of the Agreement. By shedding light on thecollaboration among Japanese, European, and U.S. companies to prepare and submit a draft to
the Uruguay Round, this paper revealed that this political process for the creation of theAgreement was very different from the conventional corporate strategy of increasing pressure on
their respective governments. This paper focuses on the pharmaceutical industry and thecomputer industry in order to describe how such issues as pharmaceutical patents, protection for
application data submitted to governments, and the scope of protection for computer programs
wereaddressedinthecompany-to-government,
company-to-company,
andgovernment-to-government negotiations.

Ibecause the bargaining power and economic
might of the United States were considered tobe the only factors taken into consideration
when interpreting the formation process of
the Agreement. In reality, however, economic
studies did not reach any consensus as to how
the international economy would be affected
if all of the intellectual property rights totraded goods were protected. Moreover, theUnited States and any other participating
country did not have a draft Agreement topropose. Despite this initial lack of common
groundforfurthernegotiation,
theparticipants successfully devised the TRIPs
Agreement, which not only defines theminimum standards applicable to intellectual
property rights as a whole but also stipulates
specific rules for new technological fields
including computer programming andundisclosed information. It would be

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to review
from the perspective of international politics
the developments that led to theestablishment of the Agreement on
Trade-Related
AspectsofIntellectual
Property Rights (hereinafter referred to as
the “TRIPs Agreement”) at the Uruguay
Round of GATT. This paper puts special
emphasisonclarifying
howthegovernment-corporate relationships in Japan,
Europe, and the United States and thechanges in those relationships affected theformation process of the TRIPs Agreement.
Many studies have been conducted on
the TRIPs Agreement in the fields of law andeconomics. However, almost no studies havebeen conducted until very recently from theperspective of international politics. This is1
IIP Bulletin 2007

necessary to examine how the firms (businessorganizations) in the United States, Europe,
and Japan differed from one another in theiropinions, how they managed to achieve a
consensus, and how their consensus
influenced the formation of each provision of
the Agreement in order to clarify the politicalprocess of the creation of the TRIPs
Agreement. Therefore, further analysis of
this formation process would require a new
study covering Europe and Japan as well as
the United States, unlike earlier studies,
which focused solely on the United States.
This paper illustrates the formation
process of the TRIPs Agreement in order toanalyze the recent establishment ofinternational economic institutions byreviewing the changes in the actions of theparties concerned. Furthermore, this paper
illustrates how the private sector influenced
the political process of establishing an
intellectual property system in the Uruguay
Round with special emphasis on thecomputer industry and the pharmaceuticalindustry, which was described in earlier
studies as the industries that had especiallygreat effect on the process of concluding theTRIPs Agreement. This paper presents thefindings of an analysis of materials about the
moves of Europe and Japan and thesummaries of interviews with the people
concerned in order to analyze the formation
process of the TRIPs Agreement with due
consideration for the corporate andgovernmental action in Europe and Japan aswell as in the United States.
This
paper
dividestheTRIPs
negotiations into four phases with a focus on
the following points: the development ofintellectual property systems in Japan,
Europe, and the United States. (Phase 1 up
to the 1970s), the pre-Uruguay Roundrelationships between the government andfirms in intellectual property industries in
the United States, which was the first torecognize intellectual property rights as atrade issue (Phase 2), the cooperation amongfirms in Japan, Europe, and the UnitedStates(Phase
3),
and
the
TRIPs
intergovernmental negotiations (Phase 4).

meaningful to review the political process ofestablishing these rules.
Since the establishment of the WTO, as
the issues covered by the TRIPs Agreement
became more noticeable, the public interestin the relationship between the Agreement
and international economics has grown. In
order to examine such relationship, somestudies were conducted on the politicalprocess to conclude the Agreement. Many of
those earlier studies pointed out thesignificance of the influence from firms in thedeveloped countries on the Uruguay Round.
They also considered the political process tohave been greatly influenced by the draft
TRIPs Agreement submitted to the GATT
Round from the private sector led by theIntellectual Property Committee (IPC), which
was formed by some U.S. firms inanticipation of the coming GATT talks on
intellectual property rights, in collaboration
with the Nippon Keidanren and the Union ofIndustrial and Employers’ Confederations ofEurope (UNICE). Those earlier studies
described the expanding globalization ininternationalsociety,theincreasingawareness of the importance of intellectual
property rights, and the resulting action
taken by firms. However, those studies failed
to clarify how the newly developed politicalprocess differed from the conventional
process. Those studies describe suchcross-boarder activities of U.S. firms as apart of lobbying to influence the government.
In other words, earlier studies illustrate theformation of the TRIPs Agreement as a
typical case where U.S. firms’ lobbying wasvery successful. This is why earlier studies
put emphasis on the United States with little
consideration for the corporate andgovernmental action taken by Japan andEurope.
However, earlier studies fail to explain
why U.S. firms needed cross-bordercooperation with non-U.S. firms even though
U.S. firms could have easily achieved theirgoal by themselves through active lobbying
thanks to the U.S. government’s policy of
promoting intellectual property protection
since the beginning of the 1980s. It would be
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The intensified debate about the issue oflegal protection for computer programs
prompted computer firms to raise theirawareness of the issue of intellectual
property rights. In the United States, thisissue was dealt with by a revision of the
copyright law. IBM, which had increased its
influence thanks to the U.S. government’s
transformation from an antitrust advocate toa promoter of intellectual property protection,
took the initiative in expanding the scope ofprotection. This initiative invited criticism
from Japanese computer firms, which hadenjoyedgovernment
incentives
andsignificantly boosted their competitiveness.
While Japan and most of the European
countries also decided to protect computer
programs by copyright due to the UnitedStates’ pressure, Japanese computer firms
were alarmed by the prospect that the scopeof protection for computer programs would bedetermined under the leadership of the U.S.
firms. In contrast to U.S. firms, which were
trying to sustain their competitive advantage
in the world by enlarging the scope of
copyright protection for computer programs,
Japanese computer firms were afraid thatsuch an attempt by U.S. firms might prevent
them
from
improvingtheexisting
technologies and using the improved
technologies to catch up with their U.S.
counterparts.
In the meantime, pharmaceutical firms
rapidly developed after the war mostly inwestern countries. In the United States, asubstance patent system had existed since
the creation of the patent law. On the other
hand, in Europe, a substance patent system
was introduced as a result of a confrontation
between European pharmaceutical firms andtheir U.S. counterparts. The rapid increase in
the production of pharmaceutical products bywestern firms was slowed down by the
problem of drug-induced diseases. In order todeal with this problem, the government ofeach country imposed stricter regulations on
the production and sale of pharmaceuticalproducts. Consequently, western firms tried
to recover the investments in the researchand development of a new pharmaceutical

The following three issues are discussed inthis paper: (1) Why did some of the firms
belonging to these industries in Japan,
Europe, and the United States take theinitiative in cooperating with firms in othercountries? (2) How did those firms manage toreach a consensus in their cooperative
activities? (3) What effects did suchcross-border cooperation among private firms
have on the formation of the TRIPs
Agreement?

II

Change of the Issue of Intellectual
Property Rights in Developed
Countries--Development
ofthePharmaceutical Industry and theComputer Program Industry

1Intellectual property systems in Japan,
Europe, and the United States andrelevant industries up to the 1970s
This chapter analyzes the roles of thepharmaceutical and computer programindustries in the establishment of theintellectual property systems in Japan,
Europe, and the United States respectively,
and the preferences that those firms newly
developed in the course of creating aninternational system within the framework of
GATT. In order to clarify the background of
the formation of the TRIPs Agreement,
Section 1 outlines the policies that had been
adopted by Japan, Europe, and the UnitedStates concerning patent rights andcopyrights up to the 1970s. Around that time,
it was rare for the government of any country
to link its intellectual property policy with its
industrial policy. The copyright and patent
cases were solved within the framework of
the copyright system of each country.
2

Change of the issue of intellectual
property rights in developed countries
Section 2 reviews the moves of computer
firms and pharmaceutical firms, which
actively promoted improvement of theintellectual property system of theirrespective countries.
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was established in the 1980s, proposed a
trade policy to restore the international
competitiveness of the United States byimproving the intellectual property systemsof developing countries. This policy aimed atconcluding an international treaty thatwould cover not only the procedural aspect
but also the regulatory aspect of theintellectual property system for the purposeofstrengthening
protectionfortheintellectual property rights as a whole. This
policy was a result of the aggressive lobbyingof the computer program industry and thepharmaceutical industry in the United States.
The U.S. government’s intention tostrengthen intellectual property protection
was clearly expressed in the “Young Report”
as well as the “President’s Trade Policy
Action Plan (TPAP)” publicized in 1985.

product by entering the markets of othercountries. Their endeavor to cultivate newmarkets prompted the Japanese government
to establish a substance patent system toencourage Japanese pharmaceutical firms todevelop new drugs on their own. The
intensifying
competition
among
pharmaceutical firms and the tightening
governmental regulations caused friction
between original drug makers and genericdrug makers in Japan, Europe, and theUnited States. The government of eachcountry took such measures as extending apatent period in order to protect the rights oforiginal drug makers in an effort to promoteresearch and development of new drugs. In
the 1980s, pharmaceutical firms started toenter the markets of developing countries
that had strong demand for pharmaceuticalgoods in an attempt to cultivate new markets
in addition to the markets of developed
countries. Their entrance to the markets ofdeveloping countries raised such new issues
as protection for application data itself andintroduction of a substance patent system indeveloping countries. As there was noconfrontation among original drug makers indeveloped countries, they started taking
active measures with the aim of establishinga preferable international institution.

2

Bilateral diplomacy and multilateraldiplomacy
This section examines what action the
U.S. firms took to request developing
countries to improve the local legal systems.
The U.S. government, which had come torecognize intellectual property rights as animportant trade issue, started actively
engaging in bilateral diplomacy to encourage
developing countries to improve their legal
systems. This governmental move wasstrongly supported by the copyrightindustries, which formed the International
Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA). The
IIPA did not find it particularly beneficial to
improve the international level of intellectual
property protection, which has been soughtby the pharmaceutical industry and thecomputer industry. The IIPA was concerned
about the nonperformance of the Berne
Convention by developing countries. The
IIPA regarded bilateral diplomacy as more
promising than multilateral diplomacy
because bilateral diplomacy was more likely
to bring concrete results than multilateraldiplomacy. In its view, multilateral diplomacy
was less predictable in terms of outcome. The
IIPA therefore insisted on taking a bilateraldiplomacy approach in order to solve
intellectual property issues in each country.

III StrengtheningofIntellectual
Property Protection in the UnitedStates--- Diversification of Corporate
Opinionsin
Their
Lobbying
Activities
1

Recognition of intellectual property
rights as a trade issue
This chapter examines the process ofstrengthening
intellectual
property
protection in the United States and analyzes
why the IPC was established despite the factthat the U.S. government was making efforts
to enhance intellectual property protection.
This section describes how the issue ofintellectual property rights became a tradeissue. The Reagan Administration, which
4
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intellectual property rights as a whole withintheframeworkofaninternationalorganization that had a system to ensurecompliance, namely, GATT. These firms
persuaded the U.S. government to establish
such a system and started discussions toform a consensus on the concrete standardsof GATT to provide protection for intellectual
propertyrights.
This
task
of
consensus-building was commissioned to the
newly established IPC, which later led thecollaborative activities among the UnitedStates, Japan, and Europe. This section
analyzes the purpose of the establishment of
the IPC. USTR Clayton Yeutter wasconcerned that the awareness of otherdeveloped countries about problems related
to intellectual property rights was not highenough to be able to expect cooperation fromthem for the realization of stronger
intellectual property protection in GATT
negotiations. To improve the situation, he
asked for cooperation from IBM and Pfizer,
both of which were very eager to strengthen
intellectual property protection. It should be
noted that the intention of the founders of the
IPC differed from that of the USTR. First ofall, the IPC did not place a high priority on
building a consensus of the entire U.S.
industries on the issue of intellectual
property rights despite the USTR’s request to
do so. The IPC was structured in such a waythat allowed smooth formation of its concrete
draft standards for intellectual property
protection. In addition to the restrictions on
the number of persons that each firm wasallowed to send as committee members, thefirm was also required to authorize its
representatives to make decisions in thecommittee meetings. The IPC also invited
many economic and legal experts toparticipate in the meetings. In this way, theIPC was started as a new privateorganization that aimed at preparing draft
international standards in cooperation withfirms in other countries. The IPC continued
its effort to form a consensus of the U.S.
industry, while devising guidelines for theintellectual property system that was underdiscussion in the GATT Round.

The IIPA explained the current situations
and identified countries where infringements
were rampant in an effort to lobby the USTR
to take appropriate action under Section 301
of the Trade Act. U.S. Congress was also
trying to improve intellectual property
protection. Since the revision of Section 301
of the Trade Act, Congress had beenpressuring the government to immediately
improve the U.S. trade balance throughbilateral negotiations. Pushed by Congress
and the IIPA, the U.S. government started aseries of bilateral talks with many countries
from around 1985.
On the other hand, the pharmaceuticalfirms and some computer firms in the UnitedStates demanded under the leadership ofPfizer and IBM that the issues related tointellectual property rights be solved thoughmultilateral diplomacy. Pfizer and IBM
insisted that comprehensive international
standards for intellectual property protection
be created in order to protect newtechnologies
developedinhigh-techindustries from piracy in developing
countries. The two firms used the President’s
Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and
Negotiation (ACTPN) to promote their
proposal to create such standards within theframework of GATT and not of WIPO, where
negations were slowed down by a
North-South confrontation. The USTR itself
was also making an effort to realize the newRound talks. It came to consider it practicalto discuss problems related to intellectual
property rights within the framework of
GATT. This is why the U.S. government
came to conduct both bilateral andmultilateral negations in order to carry out
its diplomatic policies for intellectual
property rights.

3.

The establishment and activities of
the IPCAs described above, pharmaceuticalfirms and computer firms were striving toensure protection for their new technologies
in developing countries. In order to achieve
this goal, they considered it necessary toestablish
protection
standards
for5
IIP Bulletin 2007

property rights. In particular, Japanesecomputer firms strongly advocated the IPC’s
proposal. In the end, the UNICE and theKeidanren agreed to cooperate with the IPC
to take necessary action in formation for the
coming GATT Round. These three businessorganizations in Japan, Europe, and theUnited States created the “Cooperation
among European, Japanese and UnitedStates Business Communities (‘Private
Trilateral Meeting’).”IV Corporate Cooperation among
Japan, Europe, and the UnitedStates for the Conclusion of theTRIPs Agreement--Cross-Border
Corporate
Cooperation for the Formation of a
Draft Agreement
1

Establishment of the Private Trilateral
Meeting
This section reviewed how the threebusiness organizations in Japan, Europe, andthe United States created a draft agreementthat was submitted to the intergovernmental
negotiations held in the GATT Round. Thissection started with the description of how
the Private Trilateral Meeting was formed.
The IPC started approaching foreignbusiness organizations immediately after its
establishment in order to point out that the
government of each country knew little about
issues related to intellectual property rights
and to propose that the private sector
prepare an agreeable draft agreement thatwould provide protection for the intellectual
property rights to a wide range of goods,
including pharmaceutical products andcomputer programs. The UNICE was acentral institution of the European industry,engaging
incoordination
andconsensus-building processes among various
industrial organizations. In general, theEuropean industry was reluctant to let GATT
extend its agendas to comprehensively cover
the issue of intellectual property rights
because the industry considered the existingtreaties related to this issue as sufficient.
Despite this reluctance, the UNICE decided
to join the Trilateral Meeting partly because
the UNICE was swayed by the IPC and also
partly because the UNICE agreed to the
IPC’s proposal of making procedural
improvements in intellectual property
protection.
On the other hand, the Nippon
Keidanren in Japan was still dominated bytraditional industries, such as steel, that had
little interest in the issue of intellectual
property rights. However, high-tech firms
developed their interest in intellectual2

Differences and changes in theobjectives of business organizations
This section illustrates how the purposesof the IPC, the UNICE, and the Nippon
Keidanren differed from one another for their
participation in the Private Trilateral
Meeting. The UNICE and the Keidanren put
moreemphasisontheprocedural
improvement than on the regulatory aspectof
protection
standards.
The
twoorganizations were alarmed by the excessive
protectionism pursued by both the U.S.
government and U.S. firms. The European
industry was an especially firm believer inputting the issue of piracy first. On the other
hand, the Keidanren was aiming at
preventing the United States from taking
excessively protectionist measures and at
having the United States abandon its
first-to-invent principle, which had long been
controversial among the JPO, the USPTO,
and the EPO. Having been concerned that
the Japanese government lagged behind the
U.S. government in terms of building a
consensus about intellectual property rights,
the Keidanren was hoping to counter theprotectionism of the United States incooperation with the European industry andclosely monitor GATT negotiations so thatthe negotiations would not be dominated by
the opinions of the United States.
Contrary to the expectations of businessorganizations in Japan and Europe, the IPC
and the U.S. government were not striving toachieve the common goal. The USTR wastrying to expand intellectual property
protection to as broad a range of goods as
possible. On the other hand, the IPC was
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concretedraft
agreements
exchanged
between business organizations in Japan andthe United States and also to a draft
amendment submitted by Europe, whichgave some fine-tuning to the drafts. In themeantime, the IPC, the UNICE, and theKeidanren were greatly divided over theissue of trade secrets. Nevertheless, they
were able to achieve a consensus at an earlystage of the Trilateral Meeting on protection
for pharmaceutical application data partly
because the IPC compromised with the
UNICE and the Keidanren as exemplified in
the agreement to use the term “proprietary
information” instead of “trade secrets” in thedraft agreement. The timing of the
publication of the draft agreement was
decided in consideration of the eighth TRIPs
meeting, which was scheduled for July.

aiming at establishing concrete enforceable
standards by limiting the GATT negotiations
to the fields about which the Japanese, U.S.,
and European industries had alreadyreached a consensus.
As the Trilateral Meeting progressed,
firms in Japan, Europe, and the UnitedStates, which came to recognize the necessityof creating a draft agreement, increased their
participation in substantive discussions inworking groups. At an early stage of the
Trilateral Meeting, they had almost
completed the draft of the “Fundamental
Principles” and “Explanation of Fundamental
Principles” for such subjects as patents,
trademarks, designs, and semiconductor chiplayouts. All three organizations favored theintroduction of a substance patent system.
However, the Trilateral Meeting was slowed
down because a gap between Japanese
high-tech firms and their U.S. counterparts
about
the
protection
standards
forintellectual
propertyrightsgradually
widened as a result of the increasing rivalry
between those firms. The major issues of thecontroversy were protection for computer
programs and trade secrets.

V

the

TRIPs

Private Draft
International

On September 15, 1986, which was rightbefore the official establishment of a Private
Trilateral
Meeting
inBrussels,thecommencement of a new Round was declared
in Uruguay (Punta del Este Declaration). The“Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects ofIntellectual Property Rights (TRIPs)” wasincluded in the agenda of the new Round.
This negotiation period may be divided into
two phases by the interim review held in
Geneva in April 1989. The first phase of thenegotiation period was devoted to aconfrontation between developed countries
and developing countries, which were against
the TRIPS negotiations to begin with. The
developed countries held unofficial meetings
to prepare a concrete draft agreement. This
draft agreement decided the outline of theTRIPs Agreement. At the beginning of theTRIPs negotiations, Japan, Europe, and theUnited States were very different from one
another in terms of their basic stances. While
the United States was trying to place a high3Completion of a draft agreement
This section explains how Japan, Europe,and the United States formed a consensus on
the issue of protection for computer programs
and pharmaceutical application data.
With regard to the issues of protection
for computer programs, there had been a
confrontation between the Nippon Keidanren,which desired to establish a new law toprovide appropriate protection according to
its characteristics, and the westernorganizations, which considered it enough to
specify the scope of protection in the
copyright law. Regarding the issue of trade
secrets, the United States and the United
Kingdom, which were familiar with theconcept of trade secrets, were in conflict withfirms in Japan and Europe, which wereafraid that the scope of protection for trade
secrets would broaden in the future. As far as
computer programs are concerned, aconsensus was finally reached thanks to
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IIP Bulletin 2007

Conclusionof
Agreement--- Effect of aAgreementon
Negotiations

unprotectable by copyright. With regard to
the issue of protection for trade secrets
defined by the United States as a type of
intellectual property right, this issue was notaddressed in either of the governmental
drafts proposed by the EC and Japan.
In 1988, following the year in which thegovernmental drafts of Japan, Europe, andthe United States were submitted, thePrivate Trilateral Meeting led by the IPC
publicized a draft in relation to the TRIPs
Agreement. The IPC criticized the UnitedStates for taking an excessively aggressiveand quick-fix policy and warned that such
attitude could limit the outcome of the TRIPs
negotiations to the area related to piracy. The
IPC argued that the agreement of Japan andEurope would be indispensable for creation ofa meaningful treaty in multilateralnegotiations and therefore that the UnitedStates should propose draft protection
standards acceptable to Japan and Europe.
Furthermore, the Japanese and European
governments’ lack of enthusiasm for TRIPs
negotiations surprised the U.S. government,
which had been prepared to find them lessenthusiastic than the United States. In thissituation, it was obvious that thecoordination of policies would be impossible
without a compromise by the United States.
In an effort to move the negotiations forward,
the U.S. government abandoned its quick-fix
policy and showed support for the IPC’s
proposal. The IPC, which was also concerned
about the fact that Europe was particularly
indifferent to the issue of intellectual
property rights, took measures to raise its
awareness. The UNICE had also explained
the importance of this issue to the European
Commission. The UNICE pointed out that
the TRIPs policy adopted by the European
Commission reflected only a small part of theEuropean industry and that the defective
intellectual property systems in developing
countries had caused enormous damage tothe European industry as a whole, while
recognizing the importance of the issue ofpiracy. In the meantime, having seen thegrowing public interest in protection for
geographical indications of wine in Europe,priority on the regulatory improvement ofprotection and seeking to establish highprotection standards, the EC and Japan put
moreemphasisontheprocedural
improvement of protection to create anenvironment where rights may be exercised
properly. In this chapter, we are going toreview how the governments of Japan,
Europe, and the United States overcame
their differences and prepared a draft in thefirst phase of the TRIPs negotiations. We will
also examine, from the perspective of politicalprocesses, how such reconciliation process
was affected by the draft agreement
publicized in June 1988 by businessorganizations in Japan, Europe, and theUnited States.

1

The first phase of the Uruguay RoundThe TRIPs negotiations were started
with a confrontation between developed
countries and developing countries. In 1987,
the governments of the United States, the EC,
and Japan submitted their respective drafts.
In order to improve the procedural aspect ofintellectual property protection, the U.S.
governmental
draft
proposedthereinforcement of the domestic procedures
including the criminal procedure and the useof the GATT dispute settlement system. The
draft also sought regulatory improvement by
taking a very protectionist stance. While
recognizing the necessity to create a new
agreement, the EC draft presented noconcrete
proposalsforregulatory
improvement, whereas it gave detailed
proposals on how to achieve procedural
improvement in each of the following twoareas: customs procedures and domestic
procedures to crack down on piracy. Like theEuropeanCommission,
theJapanesegovernment also proposed to apply GATT’s
basic principles to intellectual property
rights. Japan stressed the necessity for thereinforcement of implementation procedures,
while insisting that excessive domestic
measures should not be taken. Regarding
protection for computer programs, Japan
stated in the draft that program languages,
protocols, and formula should be regarded as
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IIP Bulletin 2007

and were forced to accept the TRIPs draft
agreement under the principle of single
undertaking.

the European Commission decided to put
emphasis on the issue of geographicalindications in exchange for agreeing to thedraft protection standards for intellectual
property rights submitted by Japan and theUnited States. This is why the European
Committee submitted a concrete proposal for
protection standards for various intellectual
property rights. The EC proposal gave somefine-tuning to the governmental drafts
submitted by Japan and the United States.
In Japan, the Nippon Keidanren
conducted research on the legal systems ofother countries and started preparing
Japanesedraft
standards
fromthestandpoint of private firms. Despite its
negative view on the idea of letting theprivate sector lead the policy-making process,the Ministry of International Trade andIndustry actively gathered opinions fromfirms on the subject of intellectual property
rights granted in the high-tech industries.
Following the EC draft, the Japanese
government also proposed its concrete draft
concerning regulations. Subsequently, theU.S. government presented a revised draftthat proposed more relaxed protection
standards than those it presented previously.
In this way, the governments of Japan,
Europe, and the United States formed aconsensus in the TRIPs negotiations.

VI Conclusion
The above sections confirmed that thepolitical process of concluding the TRIPs
Agreement was unprecedented in thatbusiness organizations cooperated with eachother across borders for creation of theinternational institution. This is a case wherefirms that had accumulated knowledge andexperience through their involvement in
improvingtheirrespective
national
institutions played a pivotal role informulating an international institution.
This political process was remarkable in thatfirms not only took the conventional strategy
of increasing pressure on their respective
governments through intensified lobbying
activities but also drafted an international
agreement of their own through cross-bordercollaboration. Recognizing that the corporate
and governmental policies of other countries
were different from the United States’, U.S.
firms promoted cross-border cooperation withfirms in other countries in order to form atransnational consensus in the private sector.
In order to create an international institutionthat reflected their preferences, U.S. firms
chose not to rely on the U.S. government,
which was eager to strengthen intellectual
property protection. The draft was widely
accepted because the draft was prepared byprivate firms, which had no obligation to
pursue national economic benefits. The draft
proposed a feasible legal institution based ona cross-border consensus among developed
countries.
The purpose of this paper is to review
from the perspective of international politics
the developments that led to theestablishment of the TRIPs Agreement at the
Uruguay Round of GATT. While many earlier
studies pointed out the influence ofmultinational firms on the conclusion of theTRIPs Agreement, only a few of themexamined the political process of concluding

2

The second phase of the Uruguay
Round
After publicizing the draft agreement,
the business organizations led by the IPC put
a high priority on persuading developing
countries. The IPC’s strategy prompted
newly industrializing countries, includingSouth Korea and Hong Kong, that had raised
their interest in intellectual property
protection to actively participate in theTRIPs negotiations. Their participation
caused a split in the opinion of the developing
countries, which used to be united in theirfierce opposition to intellectual property
protection.
Someisolateddeveloping
countries such as India and Brazil werepressured by the United States, which
invoked Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act,
9IIP Bulletin 2007

the Agreement in detail. Most of thosestudies that examined the political process at
all covered only the moves of the UnitedStates.
This
paper
illustrated
thecorporate-government relationships in Japan,
Europe, etc., since the 1970s and analyzes
how the political process and the progress
thereof influenced the formation of theAgreement. By shedding light on thecollaboration among Japanese, European,and U.S. firms to prepare and submit a draft
to the Uruguay Round, this paper revealed
that this political process for the creation of
the Agreement was very different from theconventional corporate strategy of increasingpressure on their respective governments.
This paper focuses on the pharmaceuticalindustry and the computer industry in ordertodescribehowsuchissuesaspharmaceutical patents, protection for
application data submitted to governments,
and the scope of protection for computer
programs
wereaddressedinthefirm-to-government,
firm-to-firm,
andgovernment-to-government negotiations.

10
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