On Tuesday 26 April, the European Court of Auditors published a report in which it criticises certain persistent shortcomings in the EU’s legal framework for the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) and highlights the lack of harmonisation of the various national systems.
In detail, the report highlights the weaknesses of the EU’s regulatory framework for designs (98/71/EC) as “obsolete” and laments the lack of an EU-wide protection regime for all products.
Furthermore,...