FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 9 May 2012. Washington, DC. For the first time, information on the world’s specialized intellectual property courts can be found in one place. The “Study on Specialized Intellectual Property Courts,” jointly published by the International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI) and United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), is the first study to catalog the world’s specialized intellectual property court regimes. In order to assist researchers in their efforts to compare countries’ respective regimes, the International Intellectual Property Institute is hosting an interactive map of the study’s results on its website.
Bruce Lehman, Chairman and President of the International Intellectual Property Institute, praised the study’s publication: “Effective rule of law is essential to the stability of the global intellectual property rights system. This study provides countries considering implementing specialized court regimes with the accumulated knowledge of the world’s most effective intellectual property institutions.”
Researchers conducting the study reviewed the intellectual property laws and regulations of over 190 countries and classified those countries according to their possession or consideration of specialized intellectual property courts, divisions, or tribunals or specialist judges. The study contains 10 chapter-length case studies analyzing the intellectual property courts of Greece, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Andean Community. The study also contains 76 paragraph-length summaries describing arrangements in non-case study countries and multinational organizations. It concludes with a series of effective practices, describing the advantages and disadvantages of specialized intellectual property courts for countries interested in implementing such arrangements.
Before publishing the study, the study’s investigators hosted a seminar at the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Global Intellectual Property Academy (GIPA) in Alexandria, VA, to which they invited and judges, academics, and other government and legal professionals from over 20 countries in order to solicit their opinions on the study’s preliminary findings. The investigators then integrated the feedback that their received during the seminar into the final document.
Assoc. Prof. Rohazar Wati Binti Zuallcobley (Malaysia) was the study’s principal investigator. Hon. Jorge Amigo Castañeda (Mexico); Mr. Ahmed J. Davis (United States); Mr. Owen Dean (South Africa); Hon. Michael Fysh QC, SC (United Kingdom); Hon. Louis Harms (South Africa); Prof. Dionysia Kallinikou (Greece); Hon. Ryoichi Mimura (Japan); Hon. Nicholas Ombija (Kenya); Mr. Shinjiro Ono (Japan); Dr. Ana María Pacón (Peru); and Mr. Kiat Poonsombudldert (Thailand) also contributed to the study. The study updates the International Bar Association’s 2003 survey on the same subject.
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