½Û×ÓÊÓƵ

As the UK is party to a number of international conventions and arrangements, the owner of UK intellectual property rights may be, or may easily become, owner of equivalent rights in other jurisdictions. The most far-reaching Convention is the Berne Convention on the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886 and revisions), which has a large number of signatories. This sets a minimum level of protection and establishes the principle of 'national treatment', so that each member state affords to works created by nationals and residents of other signatory states the same treatment as to its nationals' creations. Works may also qualify for protection by first publication in the UK or another Berne country. No formalities are required. Thus most literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and films are automatically copyright in most countries of the world. In contrast, the international protection of design rights is piecemeal.

Council Regulation (EC) 6/2002 introduced a unified system of industrial design rights, known as Community designs, throughout the European Union. The system, which includes both unregistered and registered design rights, operates in addition