TY - JOUR AU - Abdullah Ahmad , Bijar PY - 2022/09/08 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - The Notion of Compulsory Licensing for the Use of Trade Secrets (A Comparative and Analytical Study) JF - Academic Journal of Nawroz University JA - ACAD J NAWROZ UNIV VL - 11 IS - 4 SE - Articles DO - 10.25007/ajnu.v11n4a1360 UR - https://journals.nawroz.edu.krd/index.php/ajnu/article/view/1360 SP - 1-21 AB - <p>This research sheds the light on the notion of compulsory licensing for the use of trade secrets. Compulsory licensing denotes the use of an intellectualproperty right of someone by someone else without the consent of the owner in return for fair remuneration. Compulsory licensing is one of the exeptions permitted by Article 31 of the TRIPS agreement under the title "Other Use W ithout Authorization of the Right Holder" and Article 27 of the Iraqi Patent Law in the area of Patents. However, there is no parallel provision for trade secrets neither in TRIPS agreement nor in Iraqi Patant Law. The TRIPS agreement has been silent on this subject which my denote that it has been left for national laws to regulate. The subject of trade secret compulsory licensing has been subject to a heated debate among scholars after the emergence of Covid-19 pandamic due to urgent need for protecting people, unwillingness of companies to liaise information among themselves and unavailability of a mechanism to enforce them to liaise information among themselves in order to complete the scientific attempts in progress for the sake of producing a vaccine against Covid-19 and saving humanity. Therefore, this research focuses on the notion of trade secret compulsory licensing by relynig on comparative method. This research has revealed that there is no obstacle from the international agreements in the area of intellectuall property to regulate this issue in national laws. This research also concluded that this issue shall be regulated in a way that shall be appropriate with tha nature of trade secrets. The comparative approach revealed that this issue has not been regulated in any law except in the legal system of those countries whose system is common law whih can allow it through judicial cases, for example in the USA in the cases of unfair cimpetition and dependent patents through judicial cases trade secrete compulsory licensing has been issued.</p> ER -