Although it is obvious that industrial property rights which are granted on a national level - but are exploited internationally -give rise to various problems of a private international nature, it is also true that intellectual property and the conflict of lawsare two disciplines which seem to be almost unconnected. Most texts on intellectual property are only concerned with nationalintellectual property provisions as derived from the fundamental principles which were laid down in the international intellectualproperty conventions, and in the majority of classic texts on private international law there are just a couple of paragraphs onintellectual property. The latter usually deal with problems concerning the intellectual right as such under private internationallaw and the problems foreigners have to obtain these rights. But few authors include the problems that arise when internationalintellectual property licence contracts are concluded. These licence contracts will be the subject matter of the discussion in thisarticle. It is suggested that it is particulary important to examine the influence of the European Community Rome Conventionon the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations in this area. 1 Only industrial property rights will be considered, as copyrightand neighbouring rights present a series of very specific problems that are slightly different in nature. The main section of thearticle will be concerned with patent and industrial-design-right licence contracts, which present the issues in their standardform. The special features of trademark licence contracts will require some additional comments.
Paul Torremans (Sat,) studied this question.