Investor-State Dispute Settlement and intellectual property: lessons from Lilly v. Canada

Author(s):  
Daniel Gervais
Author(s):  
Thomas Cottier

The chapter assesses recent developments in intellectual property protection in the EU–Canadian Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, and extrapolates results of these negotiations to the pending EU–US negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). It discusses the likely implications of ever-increasing protection of IPRs on international trade, innovation, and technology transfer. Given the complex interaction of TRIPs and WIPO Agreements with the newly emerging agreements, the chapter finally examines the structure and operation of dispute settlement and how existing fragmentation could be overcome. Intellectual property, it is submitted, offers an important case to extend the jurisdiction of WTO dispute settlement to preferential trade agreements.


Author(s):  
Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan

This chapter reviews the broader principles in the international intellectual property (IP) system that fulfil an indirect integration or conflict resolution function, with a focus on those emanating from and applicable to the Trade Related Aspects of International Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. In focusing on Articles 7 and 8 of TRIPS, the chapter builds on prior analysis about the role of these provisions in establishing an agreed, common object and purpose of the principal global IP treaty with relevance beyond TRIPS. In light of the origins and negotiation history of Articles 7 and 8 TRIPS, the chapter shows how these provisions can be applied to integrate ‘external’ objectives and interests via interpretation and implementation. Next, this chapter reviews their very poor record of application in the first twenty years of World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute settlement. It concludes with suggestions for an appropriate recognition of external norms, objectives, and interests via Articles 7 and 8.


Author(s):  
Correa Carlos Maria

This chapter focuses on the issue of exhaustion of rights. Article 6 disclaims any intent in the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement to limit the Members’ freedom to regulate the issue of exhaustion of rights with regard to all types of intellectual property rights (IPRs). It declares the admissibility of the international exhaustion of rights, that is, the possibility of legally importing into a country a product protected by intellectual property rights, after the product has been legitimately put on the market in a foreign market. These imports—made by a party without the authorization of the title-holder but equally legal—are generally known as ‘parallel imports’. Moreover, Article 6 of the TRIPS Agreement has left Member countries freedom to incorporate the principle of exhaustion of rights into their domestic law with a national, regional, or international reach. The issue as such cannot be the subject matter of a dispute settlement under the Agreement.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Sean Morris

One of the most important cases in the jurisprudence of international law – Chorzów Factory – has a hidden secret, so much so that, even when in plain sight, legal post-mortems of the case fail to mention this well-kept secret. Chorzów Factory was about intellectual property rights, specifically patents and trade secrets, and this narrative has never been fully addressed. When the developments in international investment law and arbitration are fully considered it is worth looking back at Chorzów Factory to associate it with new streams of contemporary investor-state disputes that include issues such as intellectual property rights. Because Chorzów Factory has established the full reparation standard for unlawful expropriation, the standard has enabled a continuity of international law and underscores its importance for contemporary investment arbitration. However, the intellectual property narrative of Chorzów Factory has been neglected, and, in this article, I want to develop the intellectual property narrative of Chorzów Factory and to demonstrate the nexus between fair compensation, intellectual property rights and the continuity of international law.


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