NETHERLANDS Law and Practice Contributed by: Friederike Henke, Ingrid Cools, Philip ter Burg, IJsbrand Uljée, Suzan van de Kam and Epke Spijkerman, BUREN
• modernise, clarify and strengthen design protec - tion; • improve accessibility of design protection in the EU; • ensure enhanced interoperability of design protec - tion systems in the EU; and • harmonise the diverging spare parts protection regime across the EU. The Regulation will make it possible to combine mul - tiple designs within the same European Union Design application (to a maximum of 50), regardless of wheth - er they fall under the same Locarno Class, effectively allowing for a “bulk discount” on registration fees. 7.4 Copyright The Dutch Copyright Act ( Auteurswet ) implements the harmonised standards set forth by EU copyright law. Many of the EU directives reflect EU member states’ obligations under the Berne Convention and the Rome Convention, as well as the obligations of the EU and its member states under the World Trade Organisation “TRIPS” Agreement and the two 1996 World Intellec - tual Property Organisation (WIPO) Internet Treaties (the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty). The Copyright Act automati - cally protects the copyright of works of literature, sci - ence or art from the moment the work is created, on the condition that the work in question is an original work. The term “work” embraces many materials, such as books, brochures, films, photographs, musi - cal works, works of visual art and geographical maps. Software is also protected under the Copyright Act. A work must be “the author’s own intellectual creation” in order to qualify for copyright protection. Upon the death of the author, the copyright automati - cally devolves to the heirs. Copyright ends 70 years after the death of the work’s creator. Copyright owners have the exclusive right to publish and copy the copyrighted works, including translations. The Dutch Copyright Act stipulates that employers own the copyrights in works created by employees in the course of their employment.
Copyright owners have the right to take legal action against persons infringing their copyrights. Dutch civil law and Dutch copyright law provides, among other things, for the possibility of injunctions, full damages, the surrender of profits made on the infringement, to be accounted for by the infringing party, the trans - fer or destruction of infringing products, cost orders and withdrawal from the market, or the destruction of materials predominantly used for the manufacturing of the infringing products. In addition to copyright, there are “neighbouring rights”, which are also known as “related rights” and protect the work of performers, music and film pro - ducers, and broadcasting companies. 7.5 Others Plant Breeders’ Rights Under EU Regulation (EC) No 2100/94 of 27 July 1994 on community plant variety rights and the Dutch 2005 Seeds and Planting Materials Act, plant breeders can invoke plant breeders’ rights to protect new plant vari - eties. The Board for Plant Varieties ( Raad voor Plant- enrassen ) is responsible for granting plant breeders’ rights in the Netherlands. Database Rights Databases consisting of collections of ordered data can be protected by database rights under the Dutch Database Act. Semiconductor Topography Rights Semiconductor topography rights protect the design of electronic circuits on computer chips (also known as the topography of semiconductor products). These rights protect circuits designed to perform specific functions. Trade Name Law Trade name law protects the names under which enterprises operate. Trade names come into being automatically, as soon as enterprises start operating; owners do not have to register trade names in the commercial register. The protection of trade names is regulated in the Trade Names Act. Trade name law has been of growing importance recently due to the use of trade names in internet domain names.
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