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A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention. In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce their rights.
The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to promote and protect intellectual property (IP) across the world by cooperating with countries as well as international organizations. It began operations on 26 April 1970 when the convention entered into force. The current Director General is Singaporean Daren Tang, former head of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, who began his term on 1 October 2020.
The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, signed in Paris, France, on 20 March 1883, was one of the first intellectual property treaties. It established a Union for the protection of industrial property. The convention is still in force in 2024. The substantive provisions of the Convention fall into three main categories: national treatment, priority right and common rules.
Industrial property is one of two subsets of intellectual property, it takes a range of forms, including patents for inventions, industrial designs, trademarks, service marks, layout-designs of integrated circuits, commercial names and designations, geographical indications and protection against unfair competition. In some cases, aspects of intellectual creation, although present, are less clearly defined. The object of industrial property consists of signs conveying information, in particular to consumers, regarding products and services offered on the market. Protection is directed against unauthorized use of such signs that could mislead consumers, and against misleading practices in general.
Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have been acknowledged and protected in China since 1980. China has acceded to the major international conventions on protection of rights to intellectual property. Domestically, protection of intellectual property law has also been established by government legislation, administrative regulations, and decrees in the areas of trademark, copyright, and patent.
The Patent Law Treaty (PLT) is a treaty adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization signed on 1 June 2000 in Geneva, Switzerland, by 53 States and the European Patent Organisation. It entered into force on April 28, 2005. It aims at harmonizing and streamlining formal procedures such as the requirements to obtain a filing date for a patent application, the form and content of a patent application, and representation. The treaty "does not establish a uniform procedure for all parties to the PLT but leaves parties free to require fewer or more user-friendly requirements than those provided in the PLT." As of February 2023, the PLT had 43 contracting states.
The Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure, or Budapest Treaty, is an international treaty signed in Budapest, Hungary, on April 28, 1977. It entered into force on August 19, 1980, and was later amended on September 26, 1980. The treaty is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Intellectual property law in Romania has developed significantly in the period since the Romanian Revolution of 1989 because of the need to enforce various regional and international treaties and agreements, such as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the European Directives on Biotechnological Inventions, on Trademarks and Geographical Indications, and on Supplementary protection certificates, the Trademark Law Treaty, the Patent Law Treaty, and the European Union regulation on the Community Trademark, and the need to harmonize domestic patent law with the European Patent Convention (EPC) and with the European Union.
Republic Act No. 8293, otherwise known as the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, defines a trademark as “any visible sign capable of distinguishing goods”. Early jurisprudence has taken it to mean “a sign, device or mark by which the articles produced or dealt in by a particular person or organization are distinguished or distinguishable from those produced or dealt in by others, and must be affixed to goods or articles”.
A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and related correspondence. It is the combination of the document and its processing within the administrative and legal framework of the patent office.
A trademark is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a product or service from a particular source and distinguishes it from others. Trademarks can also extend to non-traditional marks like drawings, symbols, 3D shapes like product designs or packaging, sounds, scents, or specific colors used to create a unique identity. For example, Pepsi® is a registered trademark associated with soft drinks, and the distinctive shape of the Coca-Cola® bottle is a registered trademark protecting Coca-Cola's packaging design.
The Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks is a treaty adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization in Singapore on 28 March 2006. It entered into force on 16 March 2009, following the ratification or accession of ten countries, namely Singapore, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Romania, Denmark, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, United States, Moldova, and Australia. The treaty establishes common standards for procedural aspects of trademark registration and licensing.
World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) is an annual statistical report published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The publication provides an overview of the activity in the areas of patents, utility models, trademarks, industrial designs, microorganisms, plant variety protection, geographical indications and the creative economy.
The Madrid System, also known as the Madrid Protocol or simply Madrid, is the primary international system for facilitating the registration of trademarks in multiple jurisdictions around the world. It was established pursuant to the multilateral treaties Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks of 1891 and the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (1989), which has been the sole governing treaty since 2016.
WIPO Lex is an online global database launched in 2010, which provides free public access to intellectual property laws, treaties and judicial decisions from around the world. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) maintains and develops the database.
Republic Act No. 8293, otherwise known as The Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines lays down the rules and regulations that grant, and enforce patents in the Philippines. Patents may be granted to technical solutions such as an inventions, machines, devices, processes, or an improvement of any of the foregoing. The technical solution must be novel, innovative, and industrially useful. In order for a technical solution to be granted a patent, the inventor must file an application to the Bureau of Patents, which will examine, and in some cases, grant its approval. The law is designed as to foster domestic creativity, to attract foreign investors, and to motivate inventors to release their products for public access.
The WIPO Hague System provides an international mechanism for securing and managing design rights simultaneously, in multiple countries and regions, through one application filed directly with WIPO. The resulting international registration provides design owners with the equivalent of a bundle of national or regional registrations. The subsequent management of that international registration – including modifications, updates and renewals – is a single step procedure through WIPO.
Article 6ter of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property provides special provisions for the protection of state emblems, official hallmarks, and emblems of intergovernmental organizations against unauthorized registration and use as trademarks. Article 6ter is an integral part of international trademark law and is aimed at preventing the misuse of emblems that have national or international significance. It does not generate a trademark right, or any other type of intellectual property right, over the signs that are covered by that provision.
The Design Law Treaty (DLT), also called the Riyadh Design Law Treaty, is an international legal instrument adopted on 22 November 2024 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Riyadh. The goal of the treaty is to harmonise part of the procedural aspects of design law.
References
- ↑ "Summary of the Trademark Law Treaty (TLT) (1994)". www.wipo.int. Retrieved 2024-06-18.
- 1 2 3 Susanna H. S. Leong, "The Internationalisation of Trademark Protection" in Irene Calboli and Jane C. Ginsburg, eds., International Aspects of Trademark Protection (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
- ↑ "International IP treaties". www.uspto.gov. Retrieved 2024-06-18.
- ↑ Irene Calboli and Jacques de Werra, eds., The Law and Practice of Trademark Transactions: A Global and Local Outlook (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016), p. 31.
- 1 2 "WIPO Lex". www.wipo.int. Retrieved 2024-06-18.
