Association Agreements and Problems Approximating Intellectual Property Legislation of Third Countries with the EU Acquis: The Case of Ukraine in: Heiko Richter (
Is it possible for a non-EU country to reach a level of IP legislation compatible with that of the EU and to apply it effectively? This chapter explores this issue based on the analysis of the content and the implementation practices of EU Partnership and Cooperation Agreements with Ukraine and other Newly Independent States and the Association Agreements with Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, as well as other EU free trade agreements. It examines the problem of incompleteness of the IP provisions of these Association Agreements compared to the respective EU acts, the lack of an approximation mechanism in the Agreements and the problem of interpretation of the implemented EU provisions. The chapter considers possible measures to create a sustainable mechanism for approximating Ukrainian IP legislation to EU law and for efficiently applying the implemented provisions of the Agreement and EU acts. Furthermore, it discusses methodological issues of approximation of the IP legislation of third countries to EU law, including EU candidate countries, and illustrates the specifics of approximation of national legislation to EU law by focusing on certain IP subject matter.
