Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

For a patent lawyer it is highly gratifying to have been asked to participate in this timely and topical Symposium and exceedingly pleasing that the subject of intellectual property (IP) was on the program among very important business, financial, economic and environmental topics.

IP has not always been a mainstream subject. Some years ago it was patents and trademarks and copyrights - IP as a concept and a term did not even exist. One kept it a secret that one was a patent lawyer. It did not have a ring to it like IP lawyer does. Now we live in a Golden Age for IP: patents are much more valuable and enforceable, as many more patents are upheld and courts "read the riot act" to infringers; penalties for infringement have become severe and can include treble damages, pre-judgement interest, attorneys' fees and (preliminary) injunctions.

IP is a popular, glamorous, even sexy subject, with general law firms acquiring IP boutiques or establishing IP departments. Patent departments in corporations have moved to center stage and once lowly patent counsel have become important corporate vice presidents.

Why has IP become so important? The following points have been realized: * An effective IP system is indispensable to technological development, which leads to economic growth and social welfare. - An IP system should be part of a country's infrastructure from the outset rather than something that one thinks about after reaching a fairly advanced state of development. 0 Of the four incentives afforded by a patent system, namely, to invent, disclose, invest and "design around," the incentive to invest is the most important. - Patents and other IP are property and are not and cannot be monopolies (a patent does not take from the public and give to the individual, but rather the reverse is true), a misconception which has caused a lot of mischief. • Technology transfers, licensing and investments are ever so much easier to carry out and accomplish via patents and other IP as vehicles or bases.

My assigned task was to talk about developments and directions in Central and Eastern Europe in the field of IP, and patents in particular. Fortunately, when it comes to IP, in that region there is more good news than bad. Dramatic, epochal changes have taken place in the last two years in the region - at an unprecedented pace. Modern IP legislation is already in place or soon will be, and perhaps in the field of IP these countries shall reach the "end of history" before they do so in the political and economic fields.

Let me first give you a panoramic view of developments in patent legislation in the Central/Eastern European theatre. I have divided the area up to deal with it in the following sequence: Southern Tier, Yugoslavia, former Soviet Union and Baltics, and Western Tier.

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