Layout Designs (Topographies) of Integrated Circuits. Each Party shall provide adequate and effective protection of layout designs (topographies) of integrated circuits in accordance with its respective laws and regulations, the international agreements to which it is party and the TRIPS Agreement, in particular Articles 35 through 38.
Layout Designs (Topographies) of Integrated Circuits. 1. Each Party shall protect layout designs (topographies) of integrated circuits ("layout designs") in accordance with Articles 2 through 7, 12 and 16(3), other than Article 6(3), of the Treaty on Intellectual Property in Respect of Integrated Circuits as opened for signature on May 26, 1989, and, in addition, shall comply with the provisions of paragraphs 2 through 8 of this Article.
2. Subject to paragraph 3, each Party shall make it unlawful for any person without the right holder's authorization to reproduce, import or distribute a protected layout design, an integrated circuit in which a protected layout design is incorporated, or an article incorporating such an integrated circuit only insofar as it continues to contain an unlawfully reproduced layout design.
3. Neither Party may make unlawful any of the acts referred to in paragraph 2 performed in respect of an integrated circuit that incorporates an unlawfully reproduced layout design, or any article that incorporates such an integrated circuit, where the person performing those acts or ordering those acts to be done did not know and had no reasonable ground to know, when it acquired the integrated circuit or article incorporating such an integrated circuit, that it incorporated an unlawfully reproduced layout design.
4. Each Party shall provide that, after the person referred to in paragraph 3 has received sufficient notice that the layout design was unlawfully reproduced, such person may perform any of the acts with respect to the stock on hand or ordered before such notice, but shall be liable to pay the right holder for doing so an amount equivalent to a reasonable royalty such as would be payable under a freely negotiated license in respect of such a layout design.
5. Neither Party may permit the compulsory licensing of layout designs of integrated circuits.
6. Any Party that requires registration as a condition for protection of a layout design shall provide that the term of protection shall not end before the expiration of a period of 10 years counted from the date of filing an application for registration or from the date on which the layout design is first commercially exploited in the world, whichever occurs first.
7. Where a Party does not require registration as a condition for protection of a layout design, the Party shall provide a term of protection of not less than 10 years from the date of the first commercial exploitation of the layout design, wherever in the world it occurs.
8. N...
Layout Designs (Topographies) of Integrated Circuits. The TRIPS Agreement incorporates nearly all the substantive provisions, with a few exceptions, of the Treaty. The Treaty provides for a regime of legal protection for layout designs (topographies) of integrated circuits, and includes provisions on, inter alia, protectable subject matter, the legal form of protection, national treatment, scope of protection, exploitation, registration, disclosure and duration of protection. The requirements of the TRIPS Agreement are as follows: • members must provide protection for the layout designs (topographies) of integrated circuits in accordance with Articles 2 through 7 (other than Article 6(3), which contains provisions on compulsory licenses), Article 12 and Article 16(3) of the IPIC Treaty (Article 35); • the TRIPS Agreement substitutes a minimum term of ten to fifteen years instead of the minimum term of eight years provided in Article 8 of the IPIC Treaty (Article 38); • the TRIPS Agreement restricts the circumstances in which layout designs may be used without the consent of right-holders (Article 37.2); • the TRIPS Agreement contains an additional prohibited act to those listed in the IPIC Treaty, namely any act relating to an article incorporating an integrated circuit, but only in so far as it continues to contain an unlawfully reproduced layout design (Article 36); • the TRIPS Agreement provides that certain acts engaged in unknowingly will not constitute infringement (Article 6(4) of the IPIC Treaty explicitly allows such exclusions), but that a reasonable royalty shall be payable with respect to stock on hand after notice is given (Article 37.1).
