March 6, 2005
Prepared by William T. Fryer, III
NEW BOOK ON THE GENEVA ACT (1999)
A book was published in early 2005 by William T. Fryer, III, on the
drafting history and with analysis of the Geneva Act (1999), of the Hague
Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs
(Hague Agreement). This book should help countries and intergovernmental
organizations review the Geneva Act for accession and prepared the necessary
declarations. It should help attorneys work with the Geneva Act, and researchers
evaluate the economic aspects of the treaty. The
Notice of Publication details can be found from this link.
STATUS OF ACCESSIONS TO THE GENEVA ACT
For earlier information on the Geneva Act development, reference is made to prior newsletters posted on this web site. Specifically, each newsletter except No. 4 has background information on the Geneva Act..
The Geneva Act became operational on April 1, 2004, and reports on recent
accessions to the Geneva Act are available on the WIPO Industrial Designs
Hague System web site (http://www.wipo.int/hague). [add link to this URL].
Since February 17, 2003, the last report on this web site, nine countries
have acceded to the Geneva Act. The 17 members as of March 6, 2005, are:
Croatia, Egypt, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Kyrgyzstan, Liechtenstein,
Namibia, Republic of Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro, Singapore, Slovenia,
Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine.
POSSIBLE NEW ACCESSIONS TO THE GENEVA ACT
There are indications that other countries and regional organizations are in the process of preparing for accession to the Geneva Act. The WIPO Venice Conference, held May 13-14, 2004, stimulated interest in the Geneva Act. Speakers from the European Union and the U. S. Administrations stated that their governments would likely accede. . Other speakers who represented companies and IP attorney organizations made the same report. More details on these statements can be found on this web site Venice Conference page using this link. FICPI, an international organization of IP attorneys responded to an EU survey on interest in EU accession to the Geneva Act, and indicated it favored EU accession (See FICPI document 9/13/2004, EXCO/IT04/CET/1202, on FICPI web site at URL: http://www.ficpi.org. Informal indications are that the EU survey responses were generally favorable to EU accession to the Geneva Act.
The U.S. administration has not taken any public steps to survey interest
in Geneva Act, or submitted ratification documents to Congress. The next
step in the U.S. is to have U. S. industries and professional organizations
interested in using the Geneva Act contact the U. S. Patent and Trademark
Office Director, the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office of Legislative and
International Affairs, the U. S. Department of State and U.S. Congress,
to move the accession process forward. The concern for prevention of IP
piracy around the world should put the Geneva Act accession at the top
of the action list, for all countries and regional organizations.
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