On Wednesday 13 February 2019, after apparently 13 hours of difficult negotiations, the European Parliament (EP), the Council of the EU and the European Commission spread some copyright love just in time for Valentine's Day and finally managed to reach political agreement on the text of the new Copyright Directive.

The 585-page 'Draft Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community' was published on 14 November 2018. The terms agreed in principle in March relating to intellectual property remain largely the same but there is some further clarity.

On 26 June 2018, the Committee of Legal Affairs of the European Parliament (JURI) published a report on three-dimensional printing specifically focusing on the challenges concerning IP rights and civil liability and called on the European Commission to consider such issues particularly when assessing Directive 2004/48/E (the "Enforcement Directive") and Directive 85/374/EEC (the "Product Liability Directive"). This has now been adopted by the European Parliament on 3 July 2018.

Yesterday, the UK government published its latest White Paper on the future relationship between the UK and the EU after Brexit. In this blog we take a brief look at the implications for intellectual property rights.

Following on from our recent blog on the European Commission's revised draft agreement governing the UK's withdrawal from the EU which covered the protection and enforcement of trade marks, designs and database rights (19 March 2018), the European Commission issued a notice to stakeholders about 10 days later on 28 March 2018, setting out the impact of Brexit in the field of copyright (and touches on database rights again).

China remains the origin of most counterfeit goods arriving in the EU (as confirmed in a report just published by the European Commission). Historically rights owners have also found it incredibly difficult to succeed in enforcing their intellectual property rights in China, however there are signs that things are improving, albeit slowly, as we discuss in this blog.

On 19 March 2018, the UK and EU Commission announced that they have broadly agreed on the provisions for the protection of IP rights after the Brexit transitional period has ended. A new draft withdrawal agreement has been published and a final agreement is expected in Autumn 2018.

Yesterday, the European Commission published its first draft of an agreement governing the UK's withdrawal from the EU. The draft agreement has not been agreed by the UK and many parts of it are contentious. However, it is another step along the road towards clarifying the UK's future relationship with the EU. In this blog we look at the key provisions in the agreement concerning intellectual property.

At the end of last year, the Commission released a Communication entitled "EU's approach to Standard Essential Patents" (the "Communication"). The Communication fleshes out the previously identified deficiencies and proposes measures as to how the current environment can be improved. A summary of the Communication is set out in the main article.