Intellectual Property and the Circular Economy: Tripping Over (or Around) TRIPS?

Canvassing the areas of patent, trade secret, trademark, copyright, and design law, the chapter ultimately concludes that TRIPS contains possible areas of flexibility, which a WTO Dispute Settlement Body could invoke in order to accommodate and even promote circularity objectives. The circular economy is thus an exemplar of how TRIPS pluralism might work to address global goals in addition to innovation per se, in light of the sustainability objectives broadly outlined by the UN SDGs, as well as more comprehensively coordinate the intersecting and overlapping public and private law frameworks that govern international intellectual property.