Governing Law in International Intellectual Property Claims

In every international claim, the governing law needs to be determined. To determine the governing law, special methods are usually used which become more important and complicated in the private international law. Intellectual property claims are not exempt from this procedure. However, in these claims, it is impossible to merely use conventional conflict of laws rules on properties to determine the governing law. Intellectual Property (IP) rights are considered as intangible property and for having such characteristics, it becomes more difficult to determine the governing laws in these claims. Creation of rights, transfer of rights, breach of rights and protection of rights in the IP law needs special rules for determining the governing law. In this research, it will be shown that along with the conventional rules of determining the governing laws in property claims,thereare other specific rules such as the lex originis, lex delictis, the national law of the creator and other laws that can be used in these cases, and it needs more expertise and knowledge of these rules to settle these cases.