[T]he legal regime of intellectual property has insinuated itself more deeply into our lives and more deeply into the framework of international law, affecting everything from the recreational home user's ability to share music, to the farmer's ability to replant seed, to the production and distribution of life-saving drugs. Indeed, with full compliance to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement now required (as of January 1, 2005) in all but the world's very least developed countries, intellectual property law becomes literally a question of life or death. Despite these real world changes, intellectual property scholars increasingly explain their field through the lens of economics. (Sunder 2006, p. 261)

On the one side, the developed world side, there exists a powerful lobby of those who believe that all IPRs are good for business, benefit the public at large and act as catalysts for technical progress. They believe and argue that, if IPRs are good, more IPRs must be better. On the other side, the developing world side, there exists a vociferous lobby of those who believe that IPRs are likely to cripple the development of local industry and technology, will harm the local population and benefit none but the developed world. They believe and argue that, if IPRs are bad, the fewer the better. The process of implementing TRIPS has not resulted in a shrinking of the gap that divides these two sides, rather it has helped to reinforce the views already held…So firmly and sincerely held are these views that at times it has appeared that neither side has been prepared to listen to the other. Persuasion is out, compulsion is in. (Ibid., p. iii)