AIPLA Comments on the Draft Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Relating to Civil or Commercial Matters

Consistent with that defined mission, AIPLA strongly encourages the U.S. to advocate for the exclusion of intellectual property from the scope of the Draft Convention.

It is widely accepted that intellectual property has both national and international dimensions. At the national level, the laws and constitution of a given country govern the various types of intellectual property as well as their enforcement. At the international level, treaties exist to provide measures of consistency and harmony between member states in the key areas of intellectual property portfolio standards and enforcement. However, it is generally understood that it was never the intended role of the various international intellectual property treaties to supplant the laws or constitution of a member state. Rather, each member state of an intellectual property treaty retains its own identity and, to this end, it is unlikely that a member state would have become a signatory if the case were otherwise.