"Preface" [2008] ELECD 360; in Gendreau, Ysolde (ed), "An Emerging Intellectual Property Paradigm" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: An Emerging Intellectual Property Paradigm

Editor(s): Gendreau, Ysolde

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847205971

Section Title: Preface

Number of pages: 2

Extract:

Preface
Whenever one is confronted with a particular intellectual property issue for
which one's national law does not appear to offer an immediate answer, a
common reflex is often to enquire whether that issue has already given rise to
some discussion in the United States or in the European Union. The state of
their technological development and the size of their economies make these
two jurisdictions natural leaders in the search for solutions with respect to
intellectual property matters. This leadership has also manifested itself on an
institutional scale: if several European countries were instigators of the found-
ing intellectual property conventions, the Paris Convention for the Protection
of Industrial Property of 1883 and the Berne Convention for the Protection of
Literary and Artistic Works of 1886, the driving force behind the Agreement
on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights of 1994 has been the
United States.
Over a century of events separates these two eras in the development of
intellectual property law. It is already possible to appreciate that one of the key
differences in the political environment of these instruments is the rise of the
developing world as an active participant in the quest for a truly international
understanding of intellectual property law. The Doha Declaration on the
TRIPS Agreement and Public Health is the most conspicuous manifestation of
this evolution. At the forefront of the international process, a North­South
dialogue is thus engaged between developing countries and the leaders of the
industrialised world.
While ...