HARMONIZATION OF NATIONAL PROCEDURAL PROVISIONS CONCERNING THE ENFORCEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
HARMONIZATION OF NATIONAL PROCEDURAL PROVISIONS CONCERNING THE ENFORCEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Summary/Abstract: This short paper looks at provisions concerning very specific aspects provided for at international, regional and national level and analyzes the level of harmonization between such. Given the importance of provisional measures (and especially of preliminary injunctions) for the protection of intellectual property rights, the provisions concerning this subject were the main focus of our analysis. Found in TRIPS, the EU IP Enforcement Directive and national Romanian statutory provisions, we’ve concluded that these are not directly applicable in disputes in Romanian courts and were therefore, as a result of multiple international obligations, supposed to be harmonized. We’ve looked at different aspects in parallel with the development of implementation mechanisms and found that, despite the aforementioned obligations, not even the Directive is fully TRIPS compliant, let alone the Romanian national statutory provisions. We’ve therefore concluded that, even if common sense would dictate that protection at more levels would equal more protection this is not necessarily true, given the fact that multiple harmonization requirements create more opportunity for divergent implementation results – influenced by either benign factors (different national legal traditions, different interpretations) or malign (lack of perspective and/or understanding, rush to implementation).

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