Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, 1883 (Revised at Stockholm in 1967) - part 2

This part shall take the discussion on the Paris Convention further by highlighting more salient features of the Convention.

4.      Enforcement measures – It is to be noted that despite the Paris Convention introducing the national treatment obligation, it has also sought to uphold the sovereignty of a member nation for the purposes of enforcement of IPRs. The Convention protects the autonomy of a nation to decide its own laws for the purposes of administrative and judicial processes within its territory. This provision enables the member countries to adopt a suitable enforcement mechanism that their governance system could effectively support. However, this does not mean any dilution in the principle of national treatment. The Paris Convention specifically mandates the member countries to assure “appropriate legal remedies” to nationals of other member countries as well. The Convention goes to the extent of encouraging class actions and collective representations by federations and associations of industries and producers, towards better prosecution of IPRs and their enforcement before the judicial or administrative authorities. In fact, this form of autonomy in enforcement procedures and mechanisms is reinforced by the TRIPs Agreement as well, though it suggests different forms of minimum remedies in specific detail.

5.      Unfair Competition – An issue that has generated much discussion in the realm of IPRs in the recent years has been its correlation with the competition laws of a country. As it stands today, there is no international agreement or understanding that seeks to significantly define the scope of competition laws in a country. Anti-competitive practices are nonetheless a source of worry in every jurisdiction. The Paris Convention had addressed this concern, albeit partly, by providing a separate clause that seeks to regulate “unfair competition”. Needless to add, the protection against unfair competition is guaranteed to the nationals of all member countries. The Convention provides a simplistic notion of unfair competition by stating that any act of competition that is “contrary to honest practices in industrial or commercial matters” would constitute a good enough claim to be pursued legally as unfair competition. By laying down a simple definition of unfair competition the Convention has been able to provide wide amplitude of remedy and effective protection in the form of domestic procedures that could be invoked by nationals of any member country. This would be particularly beneficial in such member nations, which have a well developed system of competition laws. The TRIPs Agreement also provides protection against anti-competitive practices, though it is restricted only to the domain of contractual licenses.

The TRIPs Agreement, in Article 2 itself, makes it clear that the existing obligations of the member nations of such international conventions relating to IPRs, such as the Paris Convention, would continue to be in effect. The substantial part of the Paris Convention has been reinforced and made applicable by the TRIPs Agreement as well.

In the next part we shall continue this discussion by looking at another significant international convention in the field of IPRs.