EU Competence and Intellectual Property Rights. Internally Shared, Externally Exclusive?
EU Competence and Intellectual Property Rights. Internally Shared, Externally Exclusive?

Summary/Abstract: EU Competence and Intellectual Property Rights. Internally Shared, Externally Exclusive? Abstract: The European Union’s competence in external relations remains widely debated whenever the conclusion of an international agreement is about to happen. The recent focus mainly concerns the EU’s planned external trade agreements which grant it exclusive competence in this area. This is particularly complex in the field of intellectual property rights, where the EU has exclusive competence only with respect to the commercial aspects of the domain. This paper examines how the notion of the commercial aspects of intellectual property is interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Union. We also analyze the possible implications of the broad approach adopted by the Court. In this regard, we first discuss the Court’s line of argument in the Daiichi Sankyo case. Then we scrutinize and verify the interpretation applied by the Court, which is significant in order to predict future case law developments in this area. We also relate the Court’s verdict to the EU’s internal regulations which brings us to the conclusion that the approaches taken in external trade relations and within the internal market contradict each other, leading to a legal or interpretative dead-end. Although detailed and specific, the results of this analysis make it possible to understand the complexities underlying the political turbulences that often occur when the EU negotiates international trade treaties.

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