The 1994 agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) led to a radical shift in the functioning of the world economy. It was the result of intense lobbying by Northern intellectual property intensive firms, set the international standards and objectives for the protection of IP. This book uncovers the collusions between state and capital that rendered possible the emergence of the harshest global intellectual property regulations to date. The current global IP regime is akin to a mercantilist system in which states, far from losing power against the growing internationalization of economic regulations, put their capacities in service of “their” intellectual property-intensive corporations.
