IBA Urges Creation Of More Specialist IP Courts

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

06 October 2004

The International Bar Association last week published a draft report examining the existence and utilisation of specialised intellectual property (IP) courts and judges in 78 countries.

Explaining the reasoning behind the survey, which is thought to be the first of its kind, chairman of the IBA's Intellectual Property and Entertainment Committee, Clive Elliott observed that:

"Issues of access, competence, efficiency and cost arise in different contexts around the world. What we are trying to do is indentify solutions that are appropriate and workable in most countries regardless of their size or level of sophistication."

The report, which will be discussed at the forthcoming IBA conference in New Zealand, found that just three countries have specialised IP courts, namely the United Kingdom, Thailand, and Turkey.

Twenty-five countries were found to have courts of general jurisdiction with specialised divisions for IP matters or specialist judges with IP backgrounds and expertise in IP cases. These were: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Belgium, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Romania, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

In addition, eleven countries have appellate courts that have exclusive jurisdiction to hear IP cases and also hear other types of appeals (Chile, Colombia, Finland, France, India, Korea, Panama, Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United States), whilst Austria, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland have commercial divisions at the lower and high court levels that hear IP cases in addition to other business disputes.

The report put forward several recommendations for improving the options available to those seeking to protect their intellectual property internationally. These included creating specialised IP divisions in general courts where they do not already exist, providing improved training for judges, and encouraging them to specialise more, and pushing for greater information exchange amongst members of the judiciary dealing with IP-related matters.

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