International / IP

A revised version has just appeared of A Coursebook in International Intellectual Property, by Professors Doris E Long of John Marshall School of Law and Anthony D’Amato of Northwestern University Schools of Law; West Group, 2000. The book is for students and contains many reports of or extracts from cases; it is a useful reference work. There are twelve parts dealing with, respectively: United States IP law; a selection of IP "controversies" from around the world; the sources and policies of international IP law; the international rules and conventions before TRIPS, including the Berne and Paris Conventions; TRIPS; the registration of IP rights; fame and the creation of IP rights; international enforcement and remedies; state-based controls; the technology challenge (the Internet, computer software and Internet business methods and the protection of databases); the European Union (copyright, patents, trademarks and the exhaustion of IP rights) and the relationship between culture and IP protection. This is an ambitious coverage and includes many interesting discussions and references. There is an informative note on the question of "first-to-file" as against "first-to-invent". The inclusion of the section on the European Union is well merited but over-ambitious and a little inaccurate. An example of inaccuracy is the statement that "the European Union (originally called the ‘Common Market’) was established by the Treaty of Rome in 1957". This should read: "The European Union was created by the Treaty on European Union of 1992 and is founded mainly on the European Community, which came into being after the Treaty establishing the European Community of 1957 and which should not be confused with the legal and economic concept – still very much alive – of the ‘common market’". [20006]