Signatories of those treaties agree to standardize possible limitations and exceptions to exclusive rights under their respective national copyright laws.
The three-step test was first established in relation to the exclusive right of reproduction under Article 9(2) of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1967.
The WTO three-step test does not apply to cases where the Berne or Rome Conventions provide separate standards for exceptions, or for rights not covered in the TRIPS Agreement.
To date, only one legal case (before a WTO dispute settlement panel, involving U.S. copyright exemptions allowing restaurants, bars and shops to play radio and TV broadcasts without paying licensing fees, passed in 1998 as a rider to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act) has actually required an interpretation of the test.
TRIPs Article 30, covering limitations and exemptions to patent law, is also derived from a somewhat different three-step test, that includes "taking account of the legitimate interests of third parties."