European Integration and Industrial Property Rights[Evropská integrace v oblasti práv k průmyslovému vlastnictví]

During the second half of the twentieth century there was a general desire, as in other fields of law, for harmonization of the laws of industrial property on an international, and even worldwide, basis. This was due to the development of a more internationally oriented flow of technology and to the increase of international trade which made harmonization urgent in both the patent and trademark field.This led to the International Conference on Industrial Property held in Paris in1880 which adopted a draft convention which contained in essence those substantive provisions which are still today the main features of the Paris Convention on the Protection of Industrial Property. The Paris Convention was signed by 11 states in Paris in 1883. It has been revised several times. The great majority of the more than 150 Member States are parties to the latest revision of Stockholm of 1967 and 1979. The Paris Convention was followed by a bunch of more particular international treaties dealing with more detailed aspects of industrial property rights as the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks 1891, the Madrid Agreement on the Repression of False or Deceptive Indications of Origin on Goods of 1891, the Lisbon Agreement on the Protection of Appellations of Origin of 1966, the Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purpose of the Registration of Marks of 1957, Strasbourg Agreement Concerning the International Patent Classification and so on.In the second half of the twentieth century the above mentioned harmonization activities went over to the integration efforts in the field of industrial property protection. The Patent Cooperation Treaty- PCT has been signed and came into force in 1978, the European Patent Convention of 1977, which established the European Patent Office in Munich. In the field of trademarks and designs the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market has been established. The aim of it is the registration of the Community Trademarks and Community Designs.The Czech Republic took part in the harmonization and integration activities from the very beginning. It s task has been successfully completed by access to the main international treaties in the field of industrial property protection, namely to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Trademarks and to the Protocol to this Agreement, further to the Patent Cooperation Treaty and to the European Patent Convention. A quite new period of the integration process in this field comes in connection with our European Union membership.