Morcom, Christopher --- "Intellectual Property" [2008] ELECD 232; in Moser, Philip; Sawyer, Katrine (eds), "Making Community Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: Making Community Law

Editor(s): Moser, Philip; Sawyer, Katrine

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201379

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: Intellectual Property

Author(s): Morcom, Christopher

Number of pages: 11

Extract:

9. Intellectual property
Christopher Morcom*

INTRODUCTION
At the UKAEL Conference in Honour of Sir Francis Jacobs held on 30 June
2006, a number of distinguished speakers paid tribute to his outstanding
contribution over his 18 years as Advocate General to the European Court of
Justice (ECJ), in different areas of the law. Although there was mention of his
Opinions in some Intellectual Property cases, this area of his work did not
receive the attention which it deserves. However, no account of his role as
Advocate General could ever be complete without reference to his contribu-
tion to the law of Intellectual Property.


INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW IN THE EU
For reasons which are perfectly understandable, there have been very few
patent and design cases before the Court. There is still no Community Patent
system and there is no harmonised patent law in the EU; such developments
in the area of designs1 have been quite recent, only becoming effective during
2002­3. Although there has been some harmonisation in the field of copyright
law, this is far from being comprehensive, being confined to a few directives
dealing with specific topics, and there have been comparatively few cases
before the Court involving copyright issues; Sir Francis has been involved
with some of them. Another area in which he has had some involvement is that
of protected designations of origin and protected geographical indications,
which are now covered by EU legislation2 and can be said to have some over-
lap with trade mark law. ...