Hoeren, Thomas --- "The Protection of Semiconductor Chip Products in TRIPS" [2010] ELECD 461; in Correa, M. Carlos (ed), "Research Handbook on the Protection of Intellectual Property under WTO Rules" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Protection of Intellectual Property under WTO Rules

Editor(s): Correa, M. Carlos

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847209047

Section: Chapter 20

Section Title: The Protection of Semiconductor Chip Products in TRIPS

Author(s): Hoeren, Thomas

Number of pages: 15

Extract:

20 The protection of semiconductor chip
products in TRIPS
Thomas Hoeren


1. Introduction
In the second half of the 20th century, semiconductor technology as
integrated circuits (ic), commonly known as microchips, became more
and more dominating in our lives. Microchips are the control center of
simple things like toasters as well as of complex high-tech machines for
medical use. Of course, they also depict the heart of each computer. With
the invention of semiconductor technology, a whole new economic sector
began to grow and soon played a major role in the economies of the big
industrial countries like the USA, Japan and the EC. Especially, it stands
out for its innovational power and its readiness to invest. Microchips are a
symbol of modern industrial society.
Inexplicably, this new economic sector was totally ignored by the leg-
islators for a long time. The power of innovation mentioned earlier was
not as well protected as it should have been. In particular, the danger of
forging microchips did not occur to governments. It is technically very
easy and rather cheap to copy these chips, while development causes
high costs. So the producers of microchips were exposed to an increasing
number of copyists. Existing national patent and trademark laws fail to
give sufficient protection to this economic sector, because they require a
very high standard of originality or inventiveness.
At the beginning of the 1980s, the governments of the developed countries
eventually realized the risks this posed for their local microchip industry.

1. ...