International Industrial Property Law Professor

Transcript:International Industrial Property Law Professor:
International Industrial Property Law Professor Emeritus John Cross (Univ. of Louisville (USA)) Presented at University of Ljubljana May 2025 Agenda Overview Basic principles The treaty system The primary industrial property rights Utility patents Protection of secret technical and financial information Trademarks (and other similar marks) Product design protection Right of publicity Additional issues Enforcement obligations Competition considerations International IP Law/Ljubljana 2025 2 z I. Overview Basic principle of territoriality International issues The treaty system 3 International IP Law/Ljubljana 2025 Overview A significant correlation with the material you have already dealt with concerning international copyright (Mezei) But while similar in general ways, there are a surprising number of differences Differences in the mechanical rules (such as how you enforce your IP in other nations) A more fundamental differences in philosophy Copyright—very author-centered. Strong human rights flavor Industrial property—much more of an economic focus Not entirely. For example, law of secret information has other criteria International IP Law/Ljubljana 2025 4 “Industrial property” The laws that provide exclusive rights in useful things (as compared to copyright, which deals with expressions) The usefulness can be to the end user (patents and design protection) or to the seller (trademarks and trade secrets) Need not always have creativity! E.g., trademark law and especially the law of secrets does not require creativity International IP Law/Ljubljana 2025 5 “Industrial property” continued Main regimes of protection: Utility patent Trademark Confidential/secret information (sometimes called “trade secrets”) Industrial design Other regimes: “Utility models” Right of publicity Misappropriation/slavish copying International IP Law/Ljubljana 2025 6 z A. Basic principle of territoriality 7 International IP Law/Ljubljana 2025 Fundamental paradigm As in copyright, there is very almost no actual “international” intellectual property law Territoriality: rights granted by nation X are confined to nation X. Acts that occur outside that nation usually do not infringe the rights under nation X law. We will see a few exceptions in the realm of industrial property. Result: if you want to enforce rights in nations Y and Z, you need to acquire rights in that nation International IP Law/Ljubljana 2025 8 Basic approach And that is the focus of international IP law: how to acquire similar rights elsewhere We will see that the process of acquiring rights in other nations differs for the different forms of industrial property Trademark: relatively cheap and easy Utility patent: much more difficult and expensive International IP Law/Ljubljana 2025 9 Copyright compared That may