Symbol of a global policy, the TRIPS agreement is often considered as a way to impose a Western intellectual property regime and, thus, as a form of neocolonialism. Some critical analysis of the Western intellectual property invite us to historicize its development and refuse therefore to consider the TRIPS agreement as the inevitable outcome of a teleological process. Characterized by an early international regulation - with the creation of the 1883 Paris Convention on patents and trademarks, and with the 1886 Berne Convention on copyright - the history of intellectual property gives rise, it is true, to such a finalist perspective. For some, insofar as they were concluded when the Western countries shared Africa and the world, these treaties symbolize the first step of an imperial vision of intellectual property. The parallel is tempting : the late 19th century conventions would be to imperialism what the TRIPS agreement is to neo-colonialism. However, concerning the industrial property, this analogy is problematic and threatens to revive the teleological perspective which is denounced. To what extent, in fact, did the 1883 convention constitute a form of imperialism ? How were the territories under the domination of Western countries embedded in the development of industrial property in the 19th century and the early 20th century ? Our paper has no other purpose than to offer some considerations about the patent right relating with these questions. First, we will consider the issue of international but also sub-national diversity : culture can not be only considered from a national point of view and even in industrialized countries traditional knowledge, for example, was excluded from the field of patentability. Then we will focus on the emergence of the Paris convention, which constituted, at the same time, a French attempt to homogenize the international patent practices and a way to close the patent controversy. At last, our paper will deal with the integration of colonies in the Paris Union, which occurred in the Interwar period and especially with the Hague Conference (1925), which will be analyzed more specifically.
