Europeanisation of Intellectual Property Law

The title and central theme of this project is “The Europeanisation of Intellectual Property Law”. Its purpose is to explore some of the key methodological and institutional issues affecting the development of European intellectual property law, including the impact of that development on national IP law.

No area of private law has been Europeanised to the extent of IP. In addition, the methods by which the three main IP regimes have been Europeanised differ, offering three unique case studies in the Europeanisation of private law. Despite this there has to date been little sustained consideration of the methodological and institutional aspects of Europeanisation, and little attempt to draw lessons from the experiences of IP for other areas of private law. Thus, while the focus of this project is on intellectual property law, its results ought to be relevant to harmonisation in general. Among other things this is because of the “global spread of European style international courts” (K Alter), which has itself been attributed largely to intellectual property.

Now is an ideal time to explore these themes. The amount of IP litigation at the domestic and European levels is increasing, the interaction between domestic and European legal sources and institutions is becoming increasingly complex and contested, and further IP Europeanisation initiatives are being pursued. Beyond IP, the Europeanisation of general private law has also been a central focus of European and comparative legal scholars’ work, particularly since the European Parliament's call for the creation of a European Civil Code in 1989. However, and notwithstanding significant investments of time and money, and the publication of many texts, studies, books and articles, general private law remains considerably less harmonised than IP, with projects hampered by disagreement over basic issues of institution and methodology.

To date two events have been convened as part of this project: a conference entitled “Comparative Perspectives on Protecting Products by Patents”, held at St Catherine’s College on 4 December 2010, and a conference entitled European Methods and Interactions in the Field of Intellectual Property, held at Jesus College on 7 & 8 January 2012. A third conference entitled Perspectives on the Unitary (EU) Patent System will be held on 4 & 5 October 2013 to mark the 50th and 40th anniversaries of the signing of the Strasbourg and European Patent Conventions.

Faculty contact person: Justine Pila