Many of the EU instruments reflect the Member States’ international obligations under the Berne and Rome Conventions, as well as under the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) international Treaties. The legislative activity of the EU consists chiefly of harmonising certain specific aspects of IPR through the creation of its own system, as is the case for the EU trademark and design, and as will be the case for patents. Article 118 TFEU provides that in the context of the establishment and functioning of the single market, Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, establish measures for the creation of EU intellectual property law in order to provide uniform protection of IPR throughout the EU, and for the setting-up of centralised, EU-wide authorisation, coordination and supervision arrangements. Legal basisĪlthough governed by different international and national laws, intellectual property rights (IPR) are also subject to EU legislation.

Since the entry into force of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) in 2009, the EU has had explicit competence for intellectual property rights (Article 118). It encompasses two types of rights: industrial property, which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs and models and designations of origin, and copyright, which includes artistic and literary property. Intellectual property includes all exclusive rights to intellectual creations.

Intellectual equal synonym