Newsletter
LIMITS TO BAN ON PARALLEL IMPORTS OF COPYRIGHT WORKS
Under Article 87 Subparagraph 4 of the Copy-right Act, the importation of an original work or its reproductions without the consent of the owner of economic rights in the work is an in-fringement of copyright.
In a recent interpretation, the Intellectual Prop-erty Office stated that this provision mainly ap-plies to the importation of so-called "copyright goods," such as music CDs, multimedia DVDs, books, computer software, etc. If goods incor-porate copyright works (for example, bed sheets or quilt covers decorated with artistic or graphi-cal works), but the main use or value of such goods does not lie in the artistic or graphical work itself (for example, the main use of bed sheets and quilt covers is as bed linen, and their value lies in the quality of the material), such goods are not "copyright goods", and are not subject to the restrictions of Article 87 Subpara-graph 4. However, it remains to be seen whether the courts will follow this interpretation.