Intellectual Property Asia

Philips has complained to the European Commission that Taiwan's compulsory licences for patents on recordable CDs (CDR) infringe the Trade Barriers Regulation and are not in accordance with TRIPS. Philips claims to have offered seven out of the eight manufacturers a licence on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Art 31 (f) of the TRIPS Agreement clearly states that such compulsory licences shall be predominantly for the supply of the domestic market. However, over 80% of the recordable CDRs are exported.

This seems to be to be a fairly clear violation of the TRIPS agreement - industrialised countries like Taiwan really should not be granting compuslory licences to help their local industry. Philips developed the CDR standard and should be entitled to their fair share of the exploitation. It is surely unacceptable for a developed country to invoke compulsory licence provisions without good reason.

Labels: CDR, Compulsory Licence, India US Patent Office USPTO, Philips, Recordable CD, Taiwan