Can TRIPS Foster Sustainable Innovation to Address Global Challenges?

The TRIPS Agreement established minimum standards of protection for intellectual property rights, which restricted the room for manoeuvre of states to set policies according to their national needs. There is a growing need to address major global challenges, where intellectual property, in particular patent law, plays a prominent role. However, TRIPS has not been able to resolve the interference of patent rights in addressing major global issues, a clear example of this is the handling of the pandemic where a limited waiver was belatedly agreed. This chapter discusses the room for manoeuvre available to implement patent law to deal with these global needs.