Third Party Intellectual Property Rights Claim for the Object of Sale in Laws of Iran, Egypt, England, and the Convention on International Sale of Goods (Vienna 1980)

One of the instances of Intellectual (Moral) Property Rights infringement is selling counterfeit and imitation products which has been produced and sold based on a third party’s intellectual product in an illegal manner. In such cases, third party claim as to the object of sale is, in fact, the objection to such infringement of rightswhich has occurred through the “Contract of Sale”. In such instances, the claiming third party may be the primary owner of the intellectual right, or it can be a party that has already obtained from the owner the authorization as to the exploitation of such right. In addition to stating the conditions upon which the seller is bound in such cases, various legal disciplines have stipulated performance guarantees based on civil and criminal laws as well as assuring and cautionary measures against such infringement of rights. In Iran’s law, Registration of Patents, Industrial Designs and Trademarks Law, passed in 2007, and its execution ordinance regarding industrial ownerships, enacted in 2008, and the Authors’ Rights in Literacy and Artistic Works regarding literacy and artistic works ownerships, passed in 1969, have presented some regulations to this effect. Ambiguity in and plurality of opinions about the objectivity non-objectivity of the nature of “Intellectual Property Rights”, on the one hand, and ambivalence in the legal essence of authentication contracts for the exploitation of the mentioned rights (such as the licensing contract), as to whether such authentications are of contracting, leasing, profiting, or delegation nature, on the other hand, have resulted in a lack of sufficient clarity and difficulty in interpretation of statutory regulations on violation of intellectual property rights, particularly article 60 of the new Registration of Patents Law. Comparative study of the laws of Egypt and England, as renowned representatives of the two major legal systems of the Roman- Germanic and Common Law, as well as Vienna Convention 1980, as the most significant existing treaty in the area of international sale of goods, can partially be helpful in resolving the ambiguities with this concern.