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The Gordian Knot of European Union Competence: Commercial Aspects of Intellectual Property After the Judgment in Case C-414/11 Daiichi Sankyo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Boryana Gotsova

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The division of external competences between the European Union and the Member States is a long-standing object of contention for constitutional and practical reasons. The competence to negotiate and conclude international agreements in a given area has as many highly political implications as concrete policy-making ones. This tension is well illustrated by the field of the commercial aspects of intellectual property. Community, and later Union, competence over this area was established only gradually. After multiple Treaty revisions and legal disputes over competence, the Treaty of Lisbon now lists the field as one of the main elements of the Union's Common Commercial Policy (CCP). The CCP itself is one of the founding policies, dating back to the European Economic Community. It structures the Union's trade relations with third countries, encompassing bilateral and multilateral trade and tariff agreements, as well as unilateral trade defense measures such as anti-dumping and anti-subsidy instruments. Today, the Treaty of Lisbon expressly provides for exclusive Union competence over the CCP, codifying the case law of the Court of Justice.

Type
Developments
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , 01 May 2014 , pp. 511 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by German Law Journal GbR 

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