Intellectual property rights

Abstract

AbstractThe first consideration of the possibility of an international intellectual property (IP) regime was a conference on patent law, convened on the occasion of the 1873 Vienna International Exposition. At the time that plans for the Vienna Exposition were announced, US inventors and manufacturers had threatened a boycott of the event unless the Austrian Patent Law could be improved to provide more satisfactory protection to foreign inventors. These discussions were taken further on the occasion of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1878, and in a diplomatic conference in Paris in 1880. The conference proposed the establishment of a “Union for the Protection of Industrial Property.” The term “Industrial Property” was defined broadly to include not only the products of industry, but also agricultural products. A convention was finally adopted at a second diplomatic conference in March 1883.