ICC roadmap explores new intellectual property issues

Paris, 17 February 2000 - The international scale on which companies operate in today's global economy and the spread of electronic commerce have raised new issues of intellectual property protection, among them how to overcome limitations arising from the territorial nature of most legislation.

These and many other new intellectual property issues, commercial, ethical and technical, are analyzed in an ICC "roadmap" for business and policy makers, published in full on the ICC website under the title: "Current and emerging intellectual property issues for business."

The ICC analysis of how business is tackling intellectual property issue in today's global business environment, and its recommendations for government action, was assembled by a group of intellectual property experts from major companies.

The study says: "The expansion of businesses into a growing number of markets has made it prohibitively expensive, and often impossible in practice, to obtain and enforce intellectual property rights in all the countries where infringing or counterfeit goods may be manufactured and widely sold."

The main reason for the high costs was the territorial nature of intellectual property law, requiring protection to be obtained and enforcement proceedings to be instituted in each territory, ICC said.

"While some progress has been made towards "internationalizing" the system, work still needs to progress on three fronts: international harmonization of substantive intellectual property law, streamlining of procedures for obtaining intellectual property rights on an international scale, and procedures to facilitate enforcement, for example of foreign court decisions."

The ICC experts warned that new technologies and business players are emerging so fast in the fields of electronic commerce and copyrighted works that traditional business, governmental and other organizations dealing with intellectual property rights risk being overtaken by developments.

They said that the legal framework governing intellectual property activities over digital networks has yet to be clarified. "Key questions that remain to be solved include: What constitutes infringement of trademark or copyright over the Internet? Which laws should be applicable to intellectual property transactions and infringements? In which jurisdiction can actions be brought?

The ICC experts considered it unlikely in the short term that a strong worldwide cost-effective patent system could be achieved, with a single patent enforceable within every country. However, they added that much could be done to harmonize patent grant and enforcement systems.

One of the main conclusions was that the increasing politicization of intellectual property issues requires business to develop an effective communications strategy in this area. "This is essential if business is to garner the support of the public, and ensure that gains made to strengthen protection are not whittled away due to political opposition.