International Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property includes patents, trade marks, copyright and related rights, geographical indications, industrial designs, know-how and trade secrets. Intellectual property is an integral part of international trade, and its importance is increasing as the effective use of knowledge contributes ever more too national economic prosperity.

The international Intellectual Property rights involve to a significant degree both the traditional concerns of public international law and the concerns of the 'conflict of laws' or 'private international. Intellectual Property problems involve both foreign and international law. Indeed, international Intellectual Property research will tend to involve a combined process of locating and understanding foreign laws within the system of international law, which has developed to shape both the parameters of IP protection.

Intellectual property in the international arena is a highly treaty-bound area, in which the international aspect goes largely toward enabling the enforcement of private rights across borders. International intellectual property will obviously involve determining the rights in a work in another country than its country of production. International IP law-making involves the use of treaty rules and the other tools of public international law to create international predictability in the state-by-state definition and enforcement of private rights.