In Daiichi Sankyo v Demo (most likely ‘Demo’ in shorthand), the Court of Justice held last Thursday, 18 July. One of the main issues was the extent of Article 207 TFEU on the EU’s common commercial policy, vis-a-vis the TRIPS Agreement. Article 207 grants the EU exclusive competence (and the European Commission a very strong hand) in ‘common commercial policy’.
By its first question, the referring Greek court asked essentially whether Article 27 of the TRIPs Agreement falls within a field for which the Member States have primary competence and, if so, whether the national courts may accord that provision direct effect subject to the conditions laid down by national law. The TRIPs Agreement was concluded by the Community and its Member States by virtue of shared competence. At the time, for the EU to be able to exercise exclusive jurisdiction pre Lisbon, under the in foro interno, in foro externo principle, it would have had to have exercised its powers in the field of patents, or, more precisely, of patentability: roll-out of its internal powers on patentability, would have als led to exclusive power externally. The European Commission however suggested that the mixed agreement discussion (and the exercise, or not, of its internal powers), was no longer relevant, given that the Lisbon Treaty has now given it exclusive competence in the entire common commercial policy, including for intellectual property rights. Under the old Article 113 EC Treaty (later updated to Article 133 – many of us still speak of the ‘Article 113 Committee, which surely dates us!), intellectual property rights did not feature in the common commercial policy.
The ECJ conceded that of the rules adopted by the European Union in the field of intellectual property, only those with a specific link to international trade are capable of falling within the concept of ‘commercial aspects of intellectual property’ in Article 207(1) TFEU and hence the field of the common commercial policy. However it emphatically [and contrary to the view of Cruz Villalon AG] held that such is indeed the case for the TRIPS Agreement: ‘Although those rules do not relate to the details, as regards customs or otherwise, of operations of international trade as such, they have a specific link with international trade. The TRIPs Agreement is an integral part of the WTO system and is one of the principal multilateral agreements on which that system is based.’ (para 53).
Member States cannot therefore grant direct effect to the provisions of TRIPS, in accordance with national law. It is up to the ECJ to hold on such direct effect – or not, and in the absence of such direct effect, to interpret the provisions of EU law in line with the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement.
The judgment also reviews a number of substantial aspects of intellectual property law which I feel less entitled to comment on, I fear.
Geert.
