Intellectual property overview and key concepts

Intellectual Property Report

In an age when the dynamism of global economy has often shifted the balance towards services rather than products, the issue of intellectual property, both recognizing and defending certain inalienable rights that result from the creativity of one's mind has become essential, which explains the development of intellectual property rights legislation aimed in that sense.

The term really began to be used in the United States after the creation of the World Intellectual Property Organization, under the UN, in 1967, and became a more encompassing legislative reality with the passage of the Bayh-Doyle Act in 1980

, which regulated inventions and other creative products that were a direct result of governmental funding, including U.S. universities or non-profits. The 1976 Copyright Act was also fundamental in the development of protection laws in the U.S. For intellectual property, including because it assimilated many of the international norms in this area and allowed for the U.S. To better integrate in the international framework for this topic.

Since the current business environment is no longer local or regional, but rather international and global, international frameworks of intellectual property rights protection have become more and more necessary. However, this is often quite difficult, as it means that the individual rights need to be protected and enforced in a multinational framework, quite often in different states. The treaties between states are thus the first important element in ensuring the appropriate regime for the protection of intellectual property rights at an international level

The initial and treaty in the international protection of intellectual property is the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, revised several times since its initial creation in 1886. The Berne Convention has several important elements that are key to intellectual property protection today. First of all, it provides the common denominator when it comes to national frameworks for protection, because it clearly stipulates that all the member countries part of the convention have to award the same protection rights to citizens of other member states as they would to their own citizens.

Second, the Convention significantly removes some of the administrative and bureaucratic barriers that become a problem when dealing with intellectual property across borders. It is often quite a challenge to deal with such barriers even in a national environment, but once the issue is international, the bureaucratic barriers tend to become extremely cumbersome. Additionally, the Convention facilitates several important registration issues that arise between countries.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has also put together and approved by the members the WIPO Copyright Treaty. The objectives of the treaty were focused both on obtaining a common denominator for national legislation on the issue of copyright and, at the same time, adapt, to the degree to which this was possible, the legal framework to the technological developments of the end of the 20th century and the future period of time

. The WIPO Copyright Treaty significantly takes on some of the elements of the Berne Convention.

For patens and other industrial property protection treaties, there are similar challenges in attempting to create a common denominator among the different national legislations. From this point-of-view, the Paris Convention takes over some of the roles fulfilled by some of the previously mentioned conventions. As a multilateral convention, it is important to create a minimum standard in terms of the protection of industrial property.

One of the most overarching agreements on intellectual property rights and their protection in an international framework is done within the World Trade Organization through TRIPS. TRIPS covers copyright and related rights, but also a wide array of other intellectual property, such as industrial designs and patents, trademarks and geographical indications