ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates actions taken in the European Community (EC) to protect emerging technologies within the EC market by focusing on two areas of intellectual property protection crucial to the development of emerging technologies: computer programs and databases. It examines the policies the EC has adopted to encourage strengthened protection for intellectual property rights in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The EC submission to the GATT negotiating group in November 1987 marks a major shift from the position taken at the beginning of the Uruguay Round on the relationship between GATT and World Intellectual Property Organization. A more general defect of the EC position on substantive standards is the failure to make clear an intention to negotiate binding substantive standards within the GATT. There is considerable concern in the business community that the EC might seek to encourage participation by lowering the effective level of protection of intellectual property rights.
