TRIPS defines “protection of IPR” broadly to include availability, acquisition, scope, maintenance, and enforcement.

Before proceeding to analyse the ‘object and purpose’ of the TRIPS Agreement in the next Part of this Chapter, there are some important points to be made in relation to TRIPS’s own National Treatment (NT) and Most-Favoured Nation Treatment (MFN) obligations in order to understand why the common thread that is apparent in the interpretation and application of the NT/MFN obligations under the other covered agreements has not manifested in TRIPS. TRIPS Article 3 that specifies its NT obligation requires Members to accord ‘treatment no less favourable’ to ‘nationals of other Members’ than it accords to its own nationals with regard to the ‘protection of intellectual property’. TRIPS Article 4 that contains its MFN obligation states that ‘any advantage, favour, privilege or immunity’ given by a Member to the national of any other country with regard to the ‘protection of intellectual property’ shall be accorded ‘immediately and unconditionally’ to the nationals of other WTO Members.93 The concept of ‘protection of intellectual property’ is defined very broadly in the footnotes to include matters affecting the availability, acquisition, scope, maintenance, enforcement and use of intellectual property rights that have been specifically addressed in the Agreement.