(2.) Professor Gervais defines four stages of development of international copyright conventions: the pre-1883 bilateral phase; the 1883-1971
BIRPI phase (so named for the Bureaux Internationaux Reunis pour la Protection de la Propriete Intellectuelle under which the Paris and Berne Conventions were administered); the 1971-1994 TRIPs phase, which included the signing of the 1971 Paris Act of the Berne Convention and the negotiation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights; and the now current, post-1994 paradigmatic phase in which new technologies have new challenges.