Author Description

EU Directive 2004/48 EC obliges Member States to seek to achieve 'partial harmonization' of the remedies, procedures and measures necessary to enforce intellectual property law. These obligations provide what may be termed a minimum standard which must be fulfilled by the Member States in the course of their implementation of the Directive. However, the Directive is not faring well at the Member State level. The three authors' vastly detailed, article-by-article analysis of the fortunes of Directive 2004/48 EC in three EU jurisdictions offers enormously valuable insights into the complex ways Member States respond to Community law, and in so doing provides an important addition to the ongoing inquiry into the nature of the reciprocal tensions between EU law (both judicial and legislative) and the laws of Member States. The particular investigation undertaken here reveals three paradigmatic situations: the situation in which the Directive has not been implemented at all, either because the Member State believes that its current legislation is adequate or that the wording of the Directive is such that no special legislation is required (England); the situation in which implementation has been inadequate, because either the pre-existing legislation constitutes inadequate legislation or because the specifically adopted legislation proves to be legally uncertain (The Netherlands); and the situation in which the relevant time for implementation for the Directive has elapsed and no specific legislation has been adopted (Germany). If there really is, as the European Commission contends, an 'enforcement deficit' in the protection of intellectual property rights by national rules of procedure, then the most effective remedial approach, Cummings shows, is through the principles of legal certainty, full effect, and effective judicial protection. These principles will assist the national court in interpretation of the precise meaning of the substantive obligations under the Dire