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TRENDS IN PATENT AND TRADEMARK LAW

Martin Connaughton
Ashland Inc.
Dublin Ohio

For over a century a general trend running like a thread through the international community has been the attempted harmonization of intellectual property laws between the various nations. Typically, these attempts at harmonization arise in Europe embodied as treaties such as The Paris Convention, The Madrid Treaty, The Madrid Protocol, The General Agreement On Trade And Tariffs (GATT/TRIPs) and the like. In most instances the United States has taken a conservative approach and either declined to become a member or if upon acceptance and ratification of a treaty made only the minimum modifications required under the terms of the treaty. However, the globalization of world economic markets is leading the U.S. to accept a greater amount of change in the name of international harmonization of intellectual property, especially in the area of patents. This is evidenced by the enactment of changes in the U.S. patent and trademark statutes as a result of membership in GATT, more recently the Trademark Law Treaty (TLT) and possibly within the next few months ratification of the Madrid Protocol.