99182 - INTERNATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Learning outcomes

On completion of this course, the student will be able to:

Conceptualise the IIPS and understand how the constituent parts fit together.

Critically comment on the tensions in the IIPS being wrought bylinking IP with international trade and the consequences in the international arena.

Understand the most important aspects of the Treaties and how those relate to regional and domestic intellectual property laws, aswell as the tensions being wrought on the 'international system' through technological developments.

Comment on the utility of the enforcement system through which states are encouraged to meet their international obligations.

Critically consider whether the IIPS has a future, and if so, what shape it might take.

Course contents

The International Intellectual Property System (IIPS) began developing in the 19th Century in response to the then advances in cross-border trade. As intellectual property laws are territorial, so some mechanism had to be found through which protection could be accorded to authors, inventors and brand owners as their works were traded abroad. The module provides an overview of the growing body of international legal tools and of the establishment of a number of international bodies responsible for the development and oversight of a variety of Treaties and Agreements providing substantive norms and the trends through which they were translated into domestic law. These measures have had a significant impact on the shape of domestic intellectual property laws, the development of which has quickened with the growth in international trade coupled with innovative technological advances. However, there are significant tensions within the system. Many of these have been brought about through the incorporation of intellectual property into international trade law via the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement).This module will examine the IIPS from legal perspective as well as though the lens of policy and institutional perspectives. The international institutions where these rules are made and administered (such as the World Intellectual Property Organisation and the World Trade Organisation) will also be considered. Importantly, a major theme that will run through the entire course is a critical examination of the policy space available to states under international intellectual property law. Furthermore, apart from studying some of the key treaties and cases in the field of international intellectual property law, students will also critically examine the interface between international intellectual property law and other areas of international law such as international trade law and international investment law. Sessions will cover the following topics:

The principles of, and tensions, within the IIPS

The TRIPS Agreement

International Copyright Law, International Patent Law International Trademark Law and Related Rights

International rules for the enforcement of intellectual property rights

The national security exception

The investor-state dispute system and the IIPS

Traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions, and the IIPS.

IP and New Technologies

 

Readings/Bibliography

Michael Spence. Intellectual property. OUP Oxford, 2007

Graham Dutfield and Uma Suthersanen. Dutfield and Suthersanen on global intellectual property law. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020.

The World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects ofIntellectual Property Rights (as amended in January 2017).

Peter Drahos, 'Global Property Rights in Information: The Story of TRIPSat the GATT,' (1995) 13:1 Prometheus 6.

UNCTAD-ICTSD, Resource Book on TRIPS and Development (CambridgeUniversity Press, 2005).

Andrew Mitchell and Tania Voon, 'TRIPS' in D Bethlehem et al (eds.), TheOxford Handbook of International Trade Law (Oxford University Press, 2009)186.

Susy Frankel and Daniel Gervais, Advanced Introduction to International Intellectual Property, (Edward Elgar, 2016).

Laurence Helfer, 'Regime Shifting in the International Intellectual Property System'(2009)(1) Perspectives in Politics 39-44.

Bryan Mercurio and Daria Kim (ed.), Contemporary Issues in Pharmaceutical Patent Law: Setting the Framework and Exploring PolicyOptions (Routledge, 2017).

Christophe Geiger, Research Handbook on Intellectual Property andInvestment Law (Edward Elgar, 2020).

Daniel Gervais (ed.), Fairness, Morality and Ordre Public in IntellectualProperty, ATRIP Intellectual Property Series, (Edward Elgar, 2020).

WIPO, Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property, Background Brief.

Teaching methods

Hybrid method of delivery of lectures and workshops on line/in-person

Assessment methods

100% COURSEWORK

Office hours

See the website of Peter Plamenoff Petkoff