TRIPS Case Law Digest: Project Overview and a Representative Sample

TRIPS Case Law Digest is a WTO project that was developed in cooperation with AIPPI, available at https://tripscld.wto.org/.

When the collaboration started in 2018, our TRIPS Standing Committee discussed the project regularly in monthly meetings, occasionally inviting WTO representatives. Please refer to the news article by Victor Garrido and Takeshi S. Komatani for further information on how the collaboration began and evolved, available at https://www.aippi.org/content/uploads/2022/11/TRIPS-article-March-2021.pdf.

The project aims to develop a freely accessible database of judicial decisions that reference the TRIPS Agreement when interpreting domestic intellectual property legislation. To achieve this, contributors are invited to provide a copy of the full text of the decision concerned, prepare a concise summary, and identify the specific passages where the court refers to the TRIPS Agreement. These materials will allow users to better understand how national courts apply the TRIPS Agreement within their respective IP frameworks.

In this news article, we highlight one representative sample from the collection, as follows:

Summary of the decision

The plaintiff, MÜYAP Meslek Birliği [a collecting society], is the rights holder of the works that have been broadcast by the defendant Türksat Kablo TV A.Ş., on TV and radio channels. The plaintiff seeks compensation for the infringement of its right of communication (and its right of retransmission). The Court of First Instance dismissed the lawsuit on the ground that the plaintiff did not inform the defendant of the titles of the works in the notice that was issued prior to the lawsuit. The Court of Cassation partially upheld the decision, holding that the dismissal of the compensation claims was appropriate, as the plaintiff had not provided the defendant with sufficiently specific prior notice. However, the Court of Cassation found that the Court of First Instance should have prohibited the retransmission of the musical works to subscribers.

Extract of the decision text surrounding references to TRIPS and/or WIPO conventions

“In this context, the TRIPS Agreement (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) dated 1994, to which Turkey acceded and ratified through the Law on the Approval of the Ratification of The Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization numbered 4067, specifically under the chapter titled ‘Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights’ and Article 45 titled ‘Compensation’ states that in order for judicial authorities to grant compensation in favor of the rights holder for the infringement of intellectual property rights, the infringer must have committed the act knowingly or on a should-have-known basis. On the contrary, Article 46 of the Agreement, titled ‘Other Remedies (Apart From Compensation)’, states that judicial authorities should render a decision to ban, prohibit, and prevent intellectual property rights infringements even where compensation is not required.”

In addition to the summary and the extract, a full translation of the decision could be uploaded.