Enforcement Of Intellectual Property Rights In The Eu Member States

Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights in the EU Member States provides a timely overview and thorough analysis of intellectual property rights enforcement in the EU Member States. Taking legal action in one or several countries in the EU to enforce intellectual property rights is quite a challenge. The adoption of European Directive 2004/48/EC on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights was meant to put a halt to considerable discrepancies in national legislations which caused uncertainty and a difference in enforcement between the EU Member States. The Enforcement Directive aimed to create a level playing field and to ensure a high, equivalent and homogeneous level of intellectual property protection across the EU.Over the past decade, the Enforcement Directive has been transposed into all EU Member States, in national legislation and through its application in national and EU case law. Both are essential to understand the Enforcement Directive's actual scope of application. In order to prepare and undertake an action in different countries potentially simultaneously knowledge of national legislation, local custom and practice, as well as procedural law, national and EU case law is essential.This book is a collaborative effort of lawyers from top tier firms from all 28 EU Member States. It is a valuable resource for both practitioners who are active cross-border and internationally and general counsel who seek an in-depth analysis of the legal landscape across the EU.

EU Directive 2004/48 EC obliges Member States to seek to achieve 'partial harmonization' of the remedies, procedures and measures necessary to enforce intellectual property law. These obligations provide what may be termed a minimum standard which must be fulfilled by the Member States in the course of their implementation of the Directive. However, the Directive is not faring well at the Member State level. The three authors' vastly detailed, article-by-article analysis of the fortunes of Directive 2004/48 EC in three EU jurisdictions offers enormously valuable insights into the complex ways Member States respond to Community law, and in so doing provides an important addition to the ongoing inquiry into the nature of the reciprocal tensions between EU law (both judicial and legislative) and the laws of Member States. The particular investigation undertaken here reveals three paradigmatic situations: the situation in which the Directive has not been implemented at all, either because the Member State believes that its current legislation is adequate or that the wording of the Directive is such that no special legislation is required (England); the situation in which implementation has been inadequate, because either the pre-existing legislation constitutes inadequate legislation or because the specifically adopted legislation proves to be legally uncertain (The Netherlands); and the situation in which the relevant time for implementation for the Directive has elapsed and no specific legislation has been adopted (Germany). If there really is, as the European Commission contends, an 'enforcement deficit' in the protection of intellectual property rights by national rules of procedure, then the most effective remedial approach, Cummings shows, is through the principles of legal certainty, full effect, and effective judicial protection. These principles will assist the national court in interpretation of the precise meaning of the substantive obligations under the Directive. Drawing on the tenor of ECJ law that national procedural rules should not present an obstacle to adequate judicial protection, the author considers the conditions that must be fulfilled before an eventual claimant, who has suffered loss and damage caused by either the non-implementation or the incorrect implementation of a directive, may bring an action against the State for breach of Community law. The author presents his analyses of the implementation of the Directive in Dutch and English national procedure and his proposals for German implementation as three separate cases rather than comparatively, as any attempt to compare either the method of national implementation or the degree of adequacy or inadequacy inevitably obscures the essential particularities of each of the three national systems in relation to the Directive. Although this book will repay the study of anyone interested in European law, it will be of special value to practitioners and policymakers engaged in intellectual property law, particularly in EU Member States.

The establishment of Intellectual Property Rights is of utmost importance for the functioning of the market mechanism in a modern economy based more and more on trade in services and software products. Most Central and Eastern European Countries already dispose on systems of Intellectual Property Rights protection. The law enforcement mechanism in a series of countries, however, must still be strengthened. In one section of the book, the authors give an overview on the institutionalisation of Intellectual Property Rights in Central and Eastern Europe and in some successor states of the former Soviet Union with special regard to Russia. Moreover, Intellectual Property Rights systems in the United States and Western Europe are compared and the rules of WTO were taken under consideration in order to find out their potential for fostering (or hampering) the central and eastern European process of transition. Finally, a deliberation on the historical grounds and theoretical foundations of individual and common property rights with regard to economic and technological innovation is included into the collection. The volume gives a comprehensive overview on the state of Intellectual Property Rights institutionalisation in the course of the process of transition in Central and Eastern Europe.

The objective of this book is to examine how the legal order of Malta, the EU's smallest Member State, manages to cope with the obligations of the EU's acquis communautaire. As far as the legal obligations are concerned, size does not matter. Smaller Member States have the same obligations as the largest, yet they have to meet these same obligations with very fewer resources. This book examines how the Maltese legal system manages to fulfil its obligations both in terms of the supremacy of EU law, as well as how the substantive EU law is transposed and implemented. It also explores how Maltese courts look at EU law and how they manage, or not manage, to enforce it within the context of national law. It can serve as a model to demonstrate how EU law is being implemented in the smallest Member State and can serve as a basis to study the effectiveness of EU law into the domestic law of its Member States in general.

Fully updated to take account of recent legislation and guidance, this practical analysis of anti-counterfeiting and anti-piracy measures at EU borders provides a root and branch examination of the legislation and procedure in the jurisdictions of all Member States of the EU, offering a critical discussion of the latest practices.

European Intellectual Property Law offers a full account of the main areas of substantive European IP law and a discussion of their wider context and effect. The amount and reach of European law, and decision-making in the field of intellectual property has grown exponentially since the 1960s, making it increasingly difficult to treat European law as an adjunct to domestic intellectual property regimes. European Intellectual Property Law responds to this reality by presenting a clear and detailed account of each of the main areas of substantive EU intellectual property law, situated in the context of both the EU legal system and international IP law, including EU constitutional law, the law of the European Patent Convention 1973/2000, and private international law. It draws selectively on examples from domestic IP regimes to illustrate substantive differences between those regimes and to demonstrate the impact of European law, and decision-making on EU Member States. This unique, thoroughly modern approach goes beyond a discussion of the provisions of European legal instruments to consider their wider context and effect. European Intellectual Property Law is the ideal guide for any student wishing to gain a full and critical understanding of the substantive European law of intellectual property.

This fully updated book offers a compact and accessible account of EU intellectual property (IP) law and policy. The digital age brings many opportunities, but also presents continuing challenges to IP law as the EU’s programme of harmonisation unfolds. As well as addressing the main IP rights (copyright, patents, designs, trade marks and related rights), the book also considers IP’s relationship with the EU’s rules on free movement of goods and competition, as well as examining the enforcement of IP rights. Taking account of numerous changes, this timely second edition covers the substantive provisions and procedures which apply throughout the EU, making extensive reference to the case law. The author considers how the exploitation of IP is increasingly global; harmonisation, in contrast, is only partial, even at the EU level. In response, the book sets EU IP law in its wider international context. It also seeks to highlight policy issues and arguments of relevance to the EU, in its relations both within the Union and with the rest of the world. Designed as a compact and approachable account of these difficult and technical areas, and with advice on further reading and research, this unique book is useful both as a work of reference and for more general study. It is essential reading for postgraduate students, academic researchers and legal practitioners alike.

More than a source of income and a means of protection for creators, rightholders, and the creative and entertainment industries, copyright is also a vehicle for technological advances and economic development. In the European Union, industries with intensive emphasis on intellectual property rights (mainly copyright) generate more than a quarter of employment and more than a third of economic activity. Yet copyright continues to be plagued by problematic attempts to balance the interests of rightholders, the public, consumers, intermediaries, collecting societies, different national legal traditions, and other forces, European and global. This book draws a comprehensive picture of current, pending, and proposed copyright developments – legislation, ‘communications,’ white papers, and court decisions – at the levels of the European Union and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Twenty-two well-known and prestigious experts on intellectual property law from seventeen jurisdictions worldwide contribute essays on particular trends in copyright, including discussions of the following and more: - making content available in an EU digital single market; - collective management and multi-territorial licensing; - exceptions for libraries and archives, education and research; - traditional knowledge and cultural expressions; - unjustified geoblocking; - illegal content on the Internet; - text and data mining; - copyright enforcement online; and - role of the European Court of Justice. Policy recommendations are also set forth, as well as a detailed conceptual framework for a potential EU Copyright Code. As a detailed and thoughtful overview of current trends in copyright internationally, this book has no peers. It is sure to be welcomed by practitioners, policymakers, academics, researchers, and business leaders for whom intellectual property rights, and especially copyright, are of the first importance.