Lecture
The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property of 1883. The Soviet Union acceded to the convention in 1965.
On 23 December 1977 the USSR ratified the Patent Cooperation Treaty of 1970. In the field of copyright, the relevant agreement is the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886, revised in particular at the diplomatic conferences in Stockholm in 1967 and Paris in 1971. The Universal Copyright Convention of 1952 was concluded in Geneva and supplemented at the conference in Paris in 1971. The Soviet Union acceded to it in 1973. In addition, the USSR acceded to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks of 1891 (in 1976), ratified (in 1980) the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure of 1977, and took part in a number of other agreements in the field of intellectual property protection. Russia is a party to all of these agreements.
Multilateral international treaties establishing the obligations of states to protect copyright in works belonging to nationals of other countries party to the treaty or first published in those countries. The most important are the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886 and the Universal Copyright Convention concluded in Geneva in 1952 (which entered into force in 1955); the Convention, drawn up under the auspices of UNESCO, aims to ensure respect for the rights of the individual and to favour the development of literature, science and the arts, to promote the exchange of cultural values and better international understanding. It extends to written, musical, dramatic and cinematographic works, and to works of painting, engraving and sculpture. Member states of the Convention grant, on an equal footing with the works of their own nationals, protection to the works of nationals of other member countries (irrespective of the place of publication) and to works first published in the territory of any other member country irrespective of the nationality of the authors. In doing so, states are obliged to ensure the exclusive right of translation and the protection of a work for at least 25 years after the author's death, and to take all measures necessary to ensure adequate and effective protection of the rights of authors and other copyright holders. If the legislation of any of the member countries requires compliance with formalities for the protection of an author's rights (as, for example, in the USA), those requirements are deemed to have been satisfied if all copies of the work bear the special symbol © together with the name of the copyright holder and the year of first publication of the work.
In the USSR, protection under the rules of the Geneva Convention applies to works first published abroad after 27 May 1973 (the convention does not extend to works published earlier).
The Berne Convention of 1886 has been revised many times, including in Berlin (1908), Rome (1928), Brussels (1948), Stockholm (1967) and Paris (1971). As of 1 January 1973, 63 states are parties to this convention, 46 of which apply the convention in its 1948 text (the USSR is not a party to the Berne Convention). The 39 countries that are parties to both the Berne and the Geneva conventions apply, in their relations with each other, only the Berne Convention. The members of the Berne Convention form the International Union for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (the so-called Berne Union); its administrative functions are performed by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Alongside participation in international conventions, states may conclude bilateral agreements with one another on the protection of copyright. The USSR has such agreements with Hungary (in force since 1 January 1968) and with Bulgaria (in force since 1 January 1972). Under these agreements each party recognises the copyright of nationals of the other party in works first published in the territory of the other party, and grants them protection in principle on the same terms as works of its own nationals.
The Universal (Geneva) Copyright Convention was adopted in Geneva in 1952. It should be noted that the Universal Convention, unlike the Berne Convention, has no retroactive effect. This follows from Article 7 of the Universal Convention, which established the principle that the rules of the convention do not apply to works whose protection, at the time this instrument entered into force in the contracting state where protection is claimed, had definitively expired or had never existed. Unlike the Berne Convention, where the existence or absence of protection is determined by the laws of the country of origin, the Universal Convention prescribes that the above facts be determined under the laws of the state in which protection is claimed.
Another characteristic difference is the approach to the question of formalities. Paragraph 2 of Article 3 of the Universal Convention allows member countries to require compliance with formalities for the acquisition and exercise of copyright with respect to all works first published in their territory, and with respect to works of domestic authors, irrespective of the place of their publication. However, paragraph 1 of that article prescribes that all such formalities be deemed satisfied for all works protected under this convention that were first published outside the territory of the given state and whose authors are not its nationals, provided that from the first publication onwards all copies bear the copyright protection symbol together with the name of the copyright holder and the year of first publication.
Article 17 of the Universal Convention, in regulating the relationship between the Universal and the Berne conventions, establishes a kind of sanction against countries that have left the Berne Union (with a view to protecting the Berne Convention from the competing influence of the Universal Convention), and likewise establishes a special procedure for applying the Universal Convention to countries that are members of the Berne Union. (In particular, if both the country of origin and the country where protection is claimed are members of both the Berne Union and the Universal Convention, then only the rules of the Berne Convention apply.)
The questions of the interrelationship between the Berne and Universal conventions were finally settled in Paris in 1971 at the conference for the simultaneous revision of the Berne and Universal conventions. At present the Russian Federation is a party to both conventions precisely in their 1971 texts. A.P. Sergeyev, analysing the level of copyright guarantees currently required by both the Berne and the Universal conventions, notes that, despite certain differences, they practically coincide.
The Russian Federation is a party to the regional agreement of the CIS member states on cooperation in the field of the protection of copyright and related rights of 24 September 1993. The participating states agreed to apply, in their relations with each other, the rules of the Universal Convention in its 1952 text, considering themselves bound by the provisions of that convention from the date of its entry into force for the former USSR (27 May 1973). The parties declared their intention to adopt laws ensuring copyright protection at the level required by the Berne Convention.
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