The European Commission has published its strategy for intellectual property rights. There are some common themes with the Hargreaves Digital Opportunity Report – in particular, ensuring that the economy is better equipped to adapt to the digital age. The Commission’s strategy includes:
- Continued push for a single European Union patent system.
- Modernisation of the European Community Trade Mark system. This would include speeding up the registration procedure and increasing certainty over what constitutes a registrable trade mark.
- Creating a comprehensive framework for copyright in the digital single market. That would include multi-territorial collective management of copyright so that there would be online copyright licensing. There would also be a consultation on user-generated content to see if there should be more freedom for amateur producers of non-commercial film to be exempt when incorporating other copyright works. In addition, the Commission said it would propose a Directive on permitted uses of orphan works, and it actually proposed the Directive this at the same time as the strategy document.
- Replacement of the Customs Regulation to strengthen enforcement of intellectual property rights. As with the orphan works proposal, this was also introduced at the same time as the publication of the strategy.
For more on the strategy, click here: http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/barnier/headlines/news/2011/05/20110524_en.htm.