U.S.-E.U. Cooperation on "Principled I/P Reform"

According to an October 27, 2004 article by Marta Delgado and Bevin M.B. Newman, "Over the past year, the U.S. and E.U. have coordinated through an Intellectual Property Working Group focusing on patent pooling and other intersections of intellectual property law and competition law. The European Commission consulted with its U.S. counterparts prior to adopting new Technology Transfer Regulation and Guidelines, which embrace an effects-based model and move the E.U. significantly toward further convergence with the U.S. in the antitrust analysis of intellectual property licensing arrangements. During 2003 antitrust officials held discussions on multilateral licensing and standard setting organizations. Nonetheless, the area of intellectual property law has continued potential for divergence between the U.S. and the E.U. Significant gaps remain in the areas of compulsory licensing and the general understanding of the underlying economic theories of competitive harm applied to licensing restrictions."