NORWAY
WATCH OUT FOR NORWAY: AN IMPROVING JURISDICTION
Bente Holmvang and Kristine Madsen Bull & Co Advokatfi rma AS
Protecting and enforcing intellectual property (IP) in Norway may seem quite a gamble. Although Norway is an European Economic Area (EEA) member, studies show that the Norwegian Industrial Property Office (NIPO) and the Norwegian courts are both stricter in various areas regarding IP protection than the other Nordic countries. Studies also show that counterfeits are often imported from Asia through Norway, and then spread from Norway throughout Europe.
Help is at hand: Norwegian IP legislation is under revision at present. But still, when protecting and enforcing IP in the Nordic region, the order in which you act in diff erent jurisdictions is crucial, as is having your national legal counsel collaborating internationally on the course of action.
The implications of EEA membership
In 1972 and 1994, Norway declined membership of the European Economic Community and the European Union (EU), respectively. The EU is, however, Norway’s most important market and trade partner.
Norway’s relations to the EU are today defined and governed by the EEA Agreement, signed in 1992. The agreement is based on the ‘four freedoms’ of the European community, and was made between the then seven states of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the 12 member states of the EU. Today, EFTA has four member states: Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Iceland and Norway, but only Lichtenstein, Iceland and Norway have joined the EEA Agreement.
The EEA agreement allows Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to participate in the EU’s internal market without a conventional EU membership. In exchange, they are obliged to adopt all EU legislation related to the single market, except laws on agriculture and fisheries. This also includes all material IP legislation, but not all legal procedures, such as customs regulations. For all practical purposes this means that Norway (and the two other members of EEA) will continue to
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harmonise its IP legislation with that of the EU, and all EU legislation in this area will be implemented in Norwegian law in due course.
The European Patent Convention
Norway participated in the negotiations leading up to the signing of the European Patent Convention (EPC) in 1973, but did not ratify the convention when it entered into force in 1977. The Norwegian Patent Act was, however, in most material issues, already harmonised with the rules of the EPC. Upon joining the EEA Agreement, Norway accepted the obligation to implement all material rules of the EPC and later EU patent legislation such as Directive 98/44/EC on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.
Until January 1, 1992, Norway upheld an exception on the patentability of products related to food and drugs. When this exception was cancelled in 1992, Norwegian patent law was fully harmonised with EU patent law in all material ways, and has continued this harmonisation on all legislative levels.
Norway ratified the EPC in 2007 and was a full member of the European patent family, including the European Patent Office system, by 2008, which means that a European patent may now include patent protection in Norway.
The Norwegian Marketing Control Act
A revised Norwegian Marketing Control Act came into force on June 1, 2009, as a result of the Norwegian implementation of Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 11, 2005, concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market.
Although primarily a consumer protection legislation, the Marketing Act plays an important role as supplementary legislation to trademark
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