Gazi Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi

Distorted Architecture Of International Intellectual Property Regime And ...property rules 8 that emanated from other participatory countries. 9 Takinginto consideration the divergent attitudes of the participating countries, theConvention left a wide policy space accepting the existence of differentintellectual property systems and did not try to establish a system with uniformrules and standards.The early attempts for creating an international intellectual propertyregime were shaped mostly according to the need of developed countries ofthe time. The Conventions did not include any concerns about the different andchallenging conditions in less-developed countries. In fact, since most of theless-developed countries were colonies in those days, they had no alternativeoption but to engage in the international intellectual property regime createdby the colonial powers and other developed countries. 10 Okediji describesthese first multilateralism efforts as “the extension of intellectual propertylaws to the colonies for purposes associated generally with the overarchingcolonial strategies of assimilation, incorporation and control. It was alsocharacterized by efforts to secure national economic interests against otherEuropean countries in colonial territories.” 11When we look at the intellectual property laws of developing countrieswe could see that they were mostly the outcome of colonization period. Manydeveloping countries have never had a full sovereignty to be able to set theirown intellectual property standards for most of their history. 128It is interesting to note that some participating countries like Netherlands and Switzerlanddid not even have a patent system and some others (like Germany) were the supportersof the anti-patent movement. (YU, Intellectual Property, p.3.)9RICHARDS, p.114.10OKEDIJI, p.326. (stating that former colonies had no choice but to be engaged in the existinginternational system upon their independence. This was the case not only for the internationalintellectual property regime but also for other international regulations and regimes formedby the “Western tradition”).11Ibid., p.325.12DRAHOS, Developing Countries, p.766-67. Drahos also provides some interesting examples:“In most cases, the transplant of intellectual property laws to developing countrieshas been the outcome of empire building and colonization. For example, inparts of pre-independent Malaysia, it was English copyright law that applied. (...)While the Philippines remained a Spanish colony, it was Spanish patent law thatapplied. After December 1898, when the United States took over the running of thePhilippines, patent applications from there went to the U.S. Patent and TrademarkOffi ce and were assessed under U.S. law. Up until 1947, when the Philippinescreated on independent patent system, it largely followed U.S. patent law. In 1997Gazi Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi C. XV, Y. 2011, Sa. 4 29