The issues of intellectual property have always been rather controversial and complicated. Although the very term Intellectual Property (IP) applies to tangible results of the human artistic or scientific work, it is rather difficult to find out who possesses the integral right for the usage and sale of the invention, trademark, etc., i. e. the objects of the intellectual property (Bouchoux, 2002). Therefore, there has recently been started a dispute about whether the IP regulations should be carried out under the uniforms laws or there should be differences in various countries. In this respect, the notions of state sovereignty and the international law community should be considered in connection to IP.
Initially, the dispute over the uniformity of laws regulating IP relations has been the result of the controversy that aroused from the different rights that the inventors or patent owners could have in various countries (Bouchoux, 2002). For instance, if in the US a person is considered to be the genuine owner of the patent for an invention, in one of the European countries another person might claim this invention and be acknowledged as its author. Such ambiguity is rather inconvenient for IP offices, patent offices, etc. To avoid this confusion, the call for uniform laws to regulate IP has been made, but it was confronted by the idea that such uniform laws would violate the sovereignty of states (Bouchoux, 2002).
In more detail, every sovereign state has the integral right to establish laws and regulations within its boundaries with the only condition that these laws do not violate internationally accepted standards and human rights (Bouchoux, 2002). Thus, if a country proposes uniform laws for all the countries in the sphere of IP, other states might consider this proposal to be an infringement of its sovereignty which might as well lead to serious international controversy. Accordingly, the rather compelling idea of the establishment of uniform IP regulating laws is possible only after the agreement is reached between all the countries involved (Bouchoux, 2002).
On the other hand, scholars like Bouchoux (2002) argue that the modern society is close to the creation of the international law community in which the laws of countries will not only be similar but there will be a single code of laws and regulations that will be acceptable and applicable for all countries. The establishment of such a law community will eliminate the dispute over the uniform IP laws as unnecessary (Bouchoux, 2002). The laws regulating the IP sphere will be integrated into the overall legislative system and will, consequently, be regulated by the uniform law recognized in all the countries participating in the international law community.
Thus, the dispute over the creation of the uniform law to regulate Intellectual Property relations across the border is a controversial matter. There are positive as well as negative effects of the potential uniformity of IP laws (Bouchoux, 2002). On the one hand, the very idea of sovereignty might be distorted by the implementation of such uniformity. On the other hand, uniform IP laws might be the first practical step in creating the international law community. The latter has been under development for a long time and the IP sphere reforms might serve as a powerful impact in its completion.
Works Cited
Bouchoux , Deborah E. Intellectual Property The Law of Trademark, Copyrights, Patents, and Trade Secrets. Delmar Cengage Learning; 2 edition, 2002.