 |
|
CONTENT SYNDICATION 
|
|
CONTENT SYNDICATION
|
|
BLOGROLL OPML:
|
|
|
|
Search in IPJUR.COM
|
BLOG@IP::JURPatent Attorney Axel H Horns' Blog on Intellectual Property Law.
Friday, January 16, 2004Impact assessment of possible options to liberalise the aftermarket in spare parts.The EU Commission has published a Final Report to DG Internal Market dated November 18, 2003 and compiled by the European Policy Evaluation Consortium (EPEC) concerning an Impact assessment of possible options to liberalise the aftermarket in spare parts.
The aim of the study was to examine how four alternative sets of legal rights in respect of design protection would translate into future impacts on competition, community industrial sectors and consumers, against a baseline formed by the present situation. According to the study, there are two main groups of actors that have clear, and opposite, stakes in the debate: • Manufacturers of complex products (the vehicle manufacturers in this instance) consider that design protection for spare parts is an inevitable consequence of the Intellectual Property Right (“IPR”) concerned. The existence of a design right provides compensation for investment in design and rewards creativity. According to this view, primary and aftermarkets are not separable, and to make any such distinction would be artificial and should be avoided in the interests of consistency in the application of general IPR principles. • Independent producers and distributors of component parts of complex products, however, consider that design protection – meant to promote innovation and competition in the primary market (i.e. of new vehicles) – shall not be extended to the aftermarket since this creates unjustified monopoly situations. The prices of spare parts would be lower where they are not designprotected. Independent producers and distributors suggest that a limit to this IPR must be established to avoid a negative impact on competition, and to avoid manufacturers gaining full control over the aftermarket. Abolition of design protection in the aftermarket, without altering design protection in primary markets, could be established through the introduction of a repair clause. The study concludes that the aftermarket in spare parts can in principle be liberalised. However, in economics’ terms, it will never be a perfect market, since it is determined by many rigidities in different elements of the value chain, by complementarities between primary and aftermarket, by information asymmetries, and finally, by costs for control, somewhere or at many places in the value chain, depending on the option that is chosen.
| ||||||||||||||||
