Skip to Main Content

International Intellectual Property

Research guide with links to laws, treaties, cases and information on International IP

Multi-Topic Agreements

Several major agreements include more than one area of IP. There is also overlap between intellectual property protection and international trade agreements. The following major treaties and agreements regulate more than one discrete IP subject.

Regional and Bilateral Agreements

  Other IP Treaties - WIPO
A very large list of regional and bilateral IP related agreements is provided in this WIPO Lex  page.

  IPRs Online - UN ICTSD
Listings for Regional and Bilateral agreements with IP related aspects.

  SICE Trade Agreements - OAS
Includes the CAFTA, Caricom, Andean Community and MercoSur agreements as well as numerous others and the text of TRIPS and other WTO agreements.

Copyright

Trademarks

A more extensive list of trademark related agreements can be found at this page of the International Trademark Association (INTA).

Patents

  • Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)
    The PCT makes it possible to seek patent protection for an invention simultaneously in each of a large number of countries by filing an "international" patent application. The actual patent, however, still needs to be sought and issued by the individual national authority. The U.S. ratified the treaty in 1975.
  • Patent Law Treaty (PLT)
    The aim of the PLT is to harmonize... procedures in respect of national and regional patent applications. The U.S. signed the treaty in 2000. The USPTO pro-actively began to adjust its procedures prior to the 2013 ratification date.
  • European Patent Convention
    The 38 countries of the European Patent Organization have centralized and unified methods for patent procedures, including related litigation. The Convention is administered by the European Patent Office (EPO).

Geographical Indications

  Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration
The U.S. is not a a party to this agreement.

  Madrid Agreement for the Repression of False or Deceptive Indications of Source on Goods
The U.S. is not a a party to this agreement.

  NAFTA, Article 1712
Binds the signatory parties, including the U.S.

Plant Variety Protection

Other IP areas

WIPO Administered Treaties:

The World Intellectual Property Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations system of organizations.

Agreements on Designs, Classification schemes, Circuits and others can be found on the WIPO Administered Treaties page.

WIPO Treaty Search

The WIPO Lex Treaties tab lets you search for treaties by type, organization, and Subject matter/Topic.

OAS Treaty Search Feature

The OAS/SICE website, in its Disciplines > Intellectual Property Rights  tab provides an interactive database/spreadsheet hybrid.

The matrix consists of 70 different trade agreements listed in the rows. The agreements, of course, all involve OAS countries. NAFTA and CAFTA are included.

25 different field types of IP provisions are entered in the columns. The 25 type columns can be sorted ascending/descending, making it easier to determine if an IP area is involved in a certain agreement, and all the other agreements that also contain those provisions.