INTRODUCTION

Litigation in the Intangibles Economy: What? Why? How?

Industrial property rights are an effective way of ensuring a competitive advantage. To make best use of these rights, it is vital that the strategy defined for protecting and exploiting these is the most appropriate for your company. In other words, your level of protection should be set in line with your focus on particular product lines and business requirements within your market environment. As an IP manager, you are therefore required to keep the board of your company permanently up-to-date with the ongoing work on intellectual assets portfolios.

In the United States, the awareness of this need has been raised by massive damage-awards awarded by the courts to the IP right holders, and the huge sums companies accused of infringements have had to pay in order not to be prevented from producing and selling their goods and services: RIM had to pay NTP $620 million for the right to carry on marketing its Blackberry from Canada, a territory a priori outside the scope of NTP’s patent …

On the other hand, the average cost of patent infringement proceedings in the US keeps on rising and is currently about $4 million in average. So what is the position in the main European countries in relation to damage-awards and litigation costs?

A brief overview of the situation in Europe suggests a need to improve the way disputes are handled, both in terms of increasing the sums paid in damage-awards when an infringement is proven, and in terms of adequately protecting the rights of third parties to defend themselves against illegal attacks. Europe has to preserve its distinction from the United States by avoiding any drift towards the American legal system, but it will only be able to offer its companies an efficient system if it manages to unify it on the basis of substantive and procedural law. Additionally, the right balance should be set between the expectations of holders of patents, trademarks and other rights and the protection of third parties acting in good faith. The French system offers numerous advantages here.

Christian Nguyen
Chairman of the Steering Committee
CNCPI

On the eve of the French Presidency of the European Union, the 6th International Intellectual Property Conference will provide chosen best practices through more than 40 case studies in order to answer the following questions:

>Towards a unification of procedures, with a European court of patents?
>How to predict, plan, manage, organize, rationalize and exploit IP litigation to attain the best results
>What are the best answers in terms of recent and future legislative changes about:

> What are the issues at stake involving the reconciliation of IP attorneys and consultants?
> How to resolve the disputes in order to achieve the ideal balance between the holder of rights and the consumer


We are looking forward to welcome you at this unique conference in Paris, targeted to the entire community of IP professionals in France, in Europe and worldwide, including companies’ officers, institutions, judges, legal executives, attorneys & solicitors, IP consultancy firms, banks, auditors and valuation advisers, and other IP experts.

Check the online programme

Register now and get 19% off *
* Until May 15, 2008

Contact us: ripi2008@premiercercle.com