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CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS: III. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2008

Catherine Seville
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Abstract

EC intellectual property law has now reached a significant level of harmonization, and the Community can take pride in its achievements in this respect. The need to report a wealth of new matters leaves little space for introduction. However, two issues may be highlighted here briefly. The first is that in May 2004 ten new Member States will join the EU. Although enlargement offers immense opportunities, it also presents a considerable practical challenge. The second is the Commission's plan for a directive to harmonize procedure and remedies for intellectual property infringement throughout the EU.1 It seeks to go further than the ground rules on enforcement already laid down by TRIPs, and to lay down specific procedural codes for intellectual property infringement of all types—not merely piracy and counterfeiting. This enthusiasm for intervention in the procedural aspects of national law has raised serious concerns in some quarters.

Type
Articles
Information
International & Comparative Law Quarterly , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , April 2004 , pp. 487 - 493
Copyright
Copyright © British Institute of International and Comparative Law 2004

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References

1 Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Measures and Procedures to Ensure the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: COM (2003) 46 final, 30 Jan 2003.Google Scholar

2 See Cornish, WR, Drexel, J, Hilty, R, and Kur, A ‘Procedures and remedies for enforcing IPRs: the European Commission's proposed Directive’ [2003] EIPR 447Google Scholar

3 Adopted Geneva 1996. It was agreed, very unusually, that each Treaty would only come into force three months after 30 instruments of ratification had been deposited. The text of both treaties may be found at <http://www.wipo.int/treaties/ip/wct/index.html>. See also Reinbothe, J and Lewinski, S von ‘The WIPO Treaties 1996: Ready to Come into Force’ [2002] EIPR 199.Google Scholar

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28 Directive 98/71 on the Legal Protection of Designs, OJ (1998) L289/28.Google Scholar

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