Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property and E-commerce

Adrienne Ross Duhancik

June 16, 2012

Law/421

The Netherlands has many organizations and acts in place to protect intellectual property and e-commerce, such as The Patent Act 1910; The Patent Act 1995; Benelux Convention; and the Copyright Act of 1912. The laws that The Netherlands has in place are all well equipped with many lawyers and specialists to attempt to take care of these matters in a reasonable time.

The Patent Act 1910 was replaced by the Patent Act 1995, which was also revised in 2008. These acts are to protect not only the patent holder, but to respect and protect the integrity of said patent and the laws that are in place to ensure that the patent expiration date is now 20-years, as opposed to the six-year patent that had been in place for years.

The Benelux Intellectual property Office is in charge of trademark and intellectual-design registration info, and was established in 1971. The updated Benelux Convention on Intellectual Property took effect on September 1st 2006 and merged the trademarks office with the Benelux Industrial Designs Office to form the Benelux Intellectual Property Office. The office can issue a trademark for a ten-year period, renewable for successive ten-year periods. The registration process takes six months, on average. The trademark holder is notified six months before the expiry so that a renewal application can be made.

The Copyright Act 1912 provides protection for artistic, literary, and scientific works, and even extends to audio-visual works and performing artists’ work under the Neighboring Rights Law of 1993. Copyright extends for the life of the author plus 70 years. For collectively owned property, copyright is effective for 70 years after a legal entity has made the work public. No registration of copyright is required to obtain protection; mere creation confers the right to protection, even if the item is not...