"Michel Vivant" [2013] ELECD 222; in Geiger, Christophe (ed), "Constructing European Intellectual Property" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013) 447

Book Title: Constructing European Intellectual Property

Editor(s): Geiger, Christophe

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781001639

Section: Appendix

Section Title: Michel Vivant

Number of pages: 4

Abstract/Description:

‘Making the European IP System Work’. Here is a huge programme! And maybe an impossible programme! Even with the subtitle: ‘Further steps to take’, many things can be said. Really many things… As far as I was requested as an academic – in reality I claim myself as an academic who has also a practice – I shall choose to use the freedom of the academic world to stand back from the topic, strictly understood. I) Most certainly, if we want to build a European System which works, we have to satisfy a certain number of concrete requirements. That is the first side of the question. In broad outline, it is not very difficult to express an opinion about the need for unitary titles, for unitary policies, for a unitary judicial system… About the first point, we already have a European trademark and European designs. It is certain that we need a European patent. Could we imagine today to have a patent for Burgundy, Wurttemberg or Wales? Such an affirmation would seem absolutely surrealistic. But, when we claim we have a sole economic territory – the territory of the European Union – it is no more preposterous to keep a patent for a small part of this territory, even if this part is Germany, France or the United Kingdom. On the other hand, in spite of that same economic reality, it would be, at least today, unrealistic, and inopportune to organize a European copyright – would it be European copyright or European droit d’auteur? The matter is too deeply linked to our different cultures. We can surely harmonize our approaches. It is false to say the contrary. But we are not ready to build a common right for all Europe. Our philosophies are too distant. All those observations are simply realism.