International Legal Aspects of Civil Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in the Czech Republic and Ukraine

Abstract

The purpose of the article is a comparative analysis of certain international legal aspects of the Czech and Ukrainian systems of protection of IPR in the context of European integration processes. A comparative analysis of the basic principles of the interaction between international and domestic law between Ukraine and the Czech Republic shows that there are similar and distinct features. The similarity is based on the fact that the constitutions of both states contain an ambivalent legal regime effect of the provisions of international and national law, according to which the provisions of international treaties, which are properly implemented in domestic law, are an integral part of it. This means the supremacy of the national constitution on the provisions of a ratified international treaty, which, in turn, takes precedence over domestic law by virtue of the principle of good faith implementation of international treaties and the inadmissibility of invoking deficiencies in internal law and as a ground for non-compliance with international obligations. On the basis of the application of dogmatic, natural law and comparative-legal approaches the peculiarities of interaction of the international and domestic system of legal protection of intellectual property law are analyzed. The peculiarities of international legal protection of intellectual property law in the Czech Republic are revealed, in particular at the level of universal and regional systems of international protection, as well as in the framework of the supremacy of the European Union law and its horizontal effect on the legislation of Czech Republic. The difference between the legal order of Ukraine and the Czech Republic on the interaction of international and national law is conditioned by an EU factor, since the Czech Republic is a Member State of the Union. In the course of interaction between the domestic legal order of Ukraine with the EU, this takes place in the form of an approximation, the legal forms of which are defined by the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU. The interaction between the internal law of the Czech Republic and the EU law is determined in the field of intellectual property rights through at least two parameters: 1) the supremacy of law of the EU over the legislation of the Czech Republic; 2) the horizontal effect of EU law when the legislation of the Czech Republic does not properly specify and detail the principles and norms of the EU in private-law relations between individuals.