Intellectual Property Rights


Book Description

This book is the result of the PhD project I started four years ago at Europa-Kolleg Hamburg. I had the great opportunity to work on it for one year at the European University Institute in Florence and to finalise the oeuvre during my stay with the European Commission's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies in Seville. The subject matter of the book is intellectual property rights, patents in particular, and their process of harmonisation in Europe. At the beginning of the work, the intention was not to focus immediately on one narrow field in the huge realm of intellectual property rights but rather to open my mind in order to capture a broad variety of new ideas and concepts in the book. The work at three different institutes in three different European countries over the period of four years naturally exposed the work to diverging ideas and the exchange of views with many people. This is one reason for the wide spread of topics ordered around the given leitmotif, such as epistemological foundations, political background information,. the protection of biotechnological inventions and the building up process of intellectual property right systems in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In chapter two I take up Polanyi's differentiation of codifiable and tacit knowledge. Applying these concepts to my own work I realise that this book is only the visible and codified part of knowledge I was able to capture.










Guide to EU Standards and Conformity Assessment


Book Description

An easy-to-use introductory guide for industry and gov¿t. officials on the principles and concepts behind the European Union¿s (EU) ¿New Approach¿ laws and directives. Will help bus. and gov¿t. officials understand the new laws, the EU¿s standardization process, and the relationships between the European Comm. and the European standardization bodies in the EU. Also provides info. on the EU¿s approach to conformity assessment and requirements for obtaining the CE mark to gain access to the European Market. Offers explanations of such requirements as: notified bodies, conformity assessment modules, supplier¿s declaration of conformity, tech. construction files, user manuals, authorized rep., and product liability in the EU. Charts and tables.




The Legitimacy of Standardisation as a Regulatory Technique


Book Description

This timely book examines the field of European and global standardisation, showing how standards give rise to a multitude of different legal questions. It explores diverse topics in regulation such as food safety, accounting, telecommunications and medical devices. Each chapter offers in-depth analysis of a number of key policy areas. These multi-disciplinary contributions go beyond the field of law, and provide cross-disciplinary comparisons.







Regulating the Internal Market


Book Description

The insight given by the book. . . is absolutely indispensable for those who interact with the internal market. It is a goldmine of thought waiting to be discussed, used and put to the test. Ida Otken Eriksson, European Law Journal This fascinating book explores the management of the internal market from a legal perspective. While the EU agenda is currently dominated by the processes of Treaty reform, this assessment of both market and constitutional governance evaluates the coherence or otherwise of the project at the very core of European integration. Confronted with a free market nearing completion, with a relatively formulaic application of internal market law, the book portrays how this is mirrored in a growing tendency to hand the market back to the Member States and, increasingly, to authorities and bodies (both public and private) therein. We see too, however, an internal market framework that strains to cope with a series of challenges, both internal and external to the EU itself. The approach of the contributors is twofold on one hand they reflect thematically on questions of regulation which cut across the spectrum of the market and its freedoms. On the other hand they adopt more sector-specific lenses (including, for example, regulation of the media and the Internet) through which contemporary regulatory dynamics can be reconsidered. Providing analysis of contemporary challenges facing the internal market, this book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and students working in the field of EC law. It will also appeal to national and Community policy makers as it seeks to locate the constitutional and regulatory boundaries of the internal market sphere.




Improving Healthcare Quality in Europe Characteristics, Effectiveness and Implementation of Different Strategies


Book Description

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.




European Standardisation of Services and its Impact on Private Law


Book Description

With the New Approach, the EU has incorporated European standardisation in its regulatory approach to improve the free movement of goods. Such a New Approach does not exist for services. Nevertheless, a significant number of European services standards have been made. This book focuses on European standardisation of services and its impact on private law. Two services sectors are analysed: the healthcare sector and the tourism sector. The core chapters of the book contain a number of case studies based on empirical research in these sectors. The first part discusses how European services standards interact with existing legal regulation at the European and national level. It is shown that, at the European level, there is no clear legal framework in which European services standards are adopted. This has an impact on their application in private law, which is the main theme of the second part of the book. Moreover, there is a real risk that European services standards create obstacles to free movement. This will prevent their successful application in private law.




European Union Law


Book Description

Comprehensive student textbook covering all aspects of European Union law.