Call for papers: Enforcement and Competition

Call for papers: Enforcement and Competition

A special issue of International Journal of Intellectual Property Management

Raising levels of enforcement called for under obligations contained in Part III of the TRIPS Agreement are fast becoming a bone of contention in international trade. On Monday 9 April 2007, the U.S. government announced it would file two WTO complaints against China over lax enforcement of trade mark and copyrights. These complaints signal that the U.S. is moving beyond its traditional emphasis on harmonization of substantive legal provisions dealing with intellectual property rights. The EU, meanwhile, is in the process of implementing Directive 2004/48/EC (the “Enforcement Directive”), raising the levels of enforcement possibilities for rightholders. Both the US and EU furthermore ‘export’ their domestic norms on enforcement of IPRs through association agreements, bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and free trade agreements (FTAs) in an effort to protect investment and technology transfer to trade partners.

On the other side of the spectrum, the transplantation of these domestic norms to other jurisdictions often create problems in the receiving jurisdiction. Furthermore, consumer organisations, NGOs and SMEs are increasingly pushing for more user rights in the form of exemptions and limitations to exclusive intellectual property rights. (See IViR Studies for the European Commission on The Recasting of Copyright & Related Rights for the Knowledge Economy and on The Implementation and Effect in Member States' Laws of Directive 2001/29/EC on the Harmonisation of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society). Last, but not least, is the issue of the role (if any) of competition/antitrust law as a means to curb the undesirable effects of the exercise of IPR, but also as a means to regulate the market in technology transfer.

The goal of this Special Issue is to identify and analyse the relationships between raising the standard of substantive intellectual property rights and the enforcement thereof, and the call for providing more limitations and exceptions at domestic, bilateral or multilateral level. Original contributions, including conceptual, empirical, and case studies, as well as technical reports, management reports, benchmarks, and software and book reviews addressing and/or relating to any of the subject coverage areas are welcome.

Papers are invited from but not limited to the following major areas:

• Raised enforcement of IPRs due to TRIPS implementation
• Raised enforcement of IPRs due to FTA/BIT obligations
• Raised enforcement of IPRs due to regional or domestic initiatives
• Transplantation of 'domestic' IPR norms to other legal systems;
• Judiciary development of effective enforcement measures and remedies;
• Shaping statutory exemptions and limitation to IPR;
• Shaping judiciary exemptions and limitation to IPR;
• Antitrust and compulsory licensing as a means to regulate and prevent abuse in the IPR and technology transfer market;
• Management and economics of IPR enforcement

Important Date
Abstract and proposed title: 1 December 2007
Full Paper submission: 1 April 2008
Review notification: 1 June 2008
Revised submission: 1 August 2008
Notification of acceptance: 15 September 2008