World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights

Any rightholder initiating the proceedings referred to in Article 51 shall provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the competent authorities, that the law of the importing country has prima facie infringed the intellectual property right of the right to legal protection and to provide a sufficiently detailed description of the goods to enable them to be easily identified by the customs authorities. The competent authorities shall inform the applicant, within a reasonable time, whether they have accepted the application and, where they so determine, the period within which the customs authorities act. 2. For the purposes of this Agreement, the term “intellectual property” means all categories of intellectual property referred to in Sections 1 to 7 of Part II. Article 23 provides that interested parties must have the necessary legal means to prevent the use of a geographical indication to identify wines which do not originate in the place indicated by the geographical indication. This also applies if the public is not misled, if there is no unfair competition and if the actual origin of the product is indicated or if the geographical indication is supplemented by expressions such as type, type, style, imitation or similar. Similar protection should be granted for geographical indications identifying spirit drinks when used on spirit drinks. Protection against the registration of a trademark must be ensured accordingly. 5. Members shall publish each mark either before its registration or immediately after its registration and shall give petitions a reasonable opportunity to cancel the registration. In addition, members may give themselves the opportunity to oppose the registration of a trademark. As in the main existing conventions on intellectual property, the fundamental obligation of each member country is to accord persons of other members the treatment provided for in the convention with regard to the protection of intellectual property. Article 1.3 defines who these persons are.

Such persons are called nationals, but include natural or legal persons who have close links with other members without necessarily being nationals of them. The criteria for determining which persons should therefore benefit from the treatment provided for in the Agreement are those set out for that purpose in the main existing WIPO conventions on intellectual property, which of course apply to all WTO Members, whether or not they are parties to those agreements. These conventions are the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention, the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations (Rome Convention) and the Treaty on Intellectual Property in Integrated Circuits (IPIC Treaty). What are intellectual property rights? Intellectual property rights are the rights granted to people over the creations of their minds. The protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and the transfer and dissemination of technology, in the mutual interest of producers and users of technological knowledge and in a manner conducive to social and economic prosperity and the balance of rights and obligations. 2. The registration of a trademark for wines containing or consisting of a geographical indication identifying wines or for spirit drinks containing or consisting of a geographical indication designating spirit drinks shall be refused or declared automatically invalid for such wines or spirit drinks of that origin, provided that the legislation of a Member so permits: or at the request of a party. 3. Members shall accord to nationals of other Members the treatment provided for in this Convention. 1.

With respect to relevant intellectual property law, nationals of other Members are understood as natural or legal persons who would meet the criteria for eligibility for protection under the Paris Convention (1967), the Berne Convention (1971), the Rome Convention and the Intellectual Property Treaty with respect to integrated circuits, which were all members of the WTO Members of these Agreements. 2. Any Member making use of the possibilities provided for in Article 5(3) or Article 6(2) of the Rome Agreement shall notify the Council on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (hereinafter referred to as the “TRIPS Council”) of any possibility provided for in those provisions. (2) Compilations of data or other documents, whether machine-readable or in another form, which constitute intellectual creations by reason of the selection or arrangement of their content, shall be protected as such. Such protection, which does not extend to the data or the material itself, does not affect the copyright that exists in the data or the material itself. 2. Under the control of the proprietor, the use of a trade mark by another person shall be recognised as use of the trade mark for the purposes of maintaining registration. Article 10.2 clarifies that databases and other compilations of data or material other than these are protected by copyright, even if the databases contain data that, as such, are not protected by copyright. Databases are eligible for copyright protection if they represent intellectual creations due to the selection or arrangement of their content.

The provision also confirms the need to protect databases, regardless of the form in which they exist, whether machine-readable or not. In addition, the provision clarifies that this protection does not extend to the data or material itself and does not affect the existing copyright in the data or documents themselves. 7. In the case of intellectual property rights the protection of which is subject to registration, applications for protection pending for the Member concerned at the time of application of this Convention may be amended in order to benefit from enhanced protection granted under this Convention. These changes do not include any new problems. At the 2001 WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, the least developed countries had an additional 10 years to implement the provisions on TRIPS patents and “undisclosed information” with respect to medicines. In July 2002, the WTO General Council agreed to remove the obligations of least developed countries with regard to exclusive marketing rights for medicines until 1 January 2016. The cancellation of a trade mark on grounds of non-use may take place only after three years of uninterrupted non-use, unless the proprietor of the trade mark demonstrates valid reasons based on the existence of obstacles to such use. Circumstances that occur beyond the control of the trademark owner, such as restrictions. B on importation or other official restrictions, are recognized as valid reasons for non-use.

The use of a trade mark by another person subject to the control of its proprietor must be recognised as use of the trade mark for the purposes of maintaining registration (Article 19). 1. For the purposes of the civil proceedings for infringement of the rights of the rightholder referred to in point (b) of Article 28(1), the judicial authorities shall have the power to order the defendant to demonstrate that the procedure for obtaining an identical product is different from the patented process where the subject matter of a patent is a process for obtaining a product. Therefore, in at least one of the following circumstances, Members must provide that any identical product manufactured without the consent of the patent owner is deemed to have been obtained by the patented process until proven otherwise: (5) It is understood that this Party does not create an obligation to establish a judicial system for the enforcement of intellectual property rights that is affected by the application of the law in general. not the ability of members to enforce their rights in general. Nothing in this Part creates an obligation with respect to the allocation of resources between the enforcement of intellectual property rights and law enforcement in general. Article 40 of the TRIPS Agreement recognizes that certain licensing practices or conditions relating to intellectual property rights that restrict competition may adversely affect trade and impede the transfer and dissemination of technology (paragraph 1). .