- Chapter I Subject Matter of Protection
- Chapter II Right to Protection
- Chapter III Registration of Topographies
- Chapter IV Rights
- Chapter V Transfer of Rights
- Chapter VI Exhaustion of Rights
- Chapter VII Defense of Rights
- Chapter VIII Fees
- Chapter IX Final Provisions
Law on the Protection of Topographies of Integrated Circuits *
(No. 16 of March 6, 1995)
CONTENTS **
Articles
Chapter I: Subject Matter of Protection........................................................................ 1 - 5
Chapter II: Right to Protection....................................................................................... 6 - 11
Chapter III: Registration of Topographies....................................................................... 12 - 18
Chapter IV: Rights........................................................................................................... 19 - 29
Chapter V: Transfer of Rights........................................................................................ 30 - 35
Chapter VI: Exhaustion of Rights.................................................................................... 36 - 39
Chapter VII: Defense of Rights........................................................................................ 40 - 43
Chapter VIII: Fees.............................................................................................................. 44 - 47
Chapter IX: Final Provisions........................................................................................... 48 - 49
Chapter I Subject Matter of Protection
Art. 1. Topographies of integrated circuits shall be protected in Romania by registration with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks according to the provisions of this Law.
Art. 2. For the purposes of this Law, “integrated circuit” means a product in its final form or in an intermediate form comprising a set of active and passive components, interconnections included, which belong integrally or partially to the body or to the surface of a piece of material, said product being intended to perform an electronic function. For the purposes of this Law, “topography of an integrated circuit”–hereinafter referred to as “topography”– means a three-dimensional disposition, however expressed, of certain elements of an integrated circuit, at least one of which is active, and of all or some interconnections of the integrated circuit or such a three-dimensional disposition prepared for the manufacturing of an integrated circuit.
Art. 3. Original topographies shall be protected under this Law. Topographies shall be deemed original if they are the result of an intellectual effort made by their creators and if they are not commonplace among the creators of topographies and manufacturers of integrated circuits, at the time of their creation.
A topography made up of a combination of commonplace elements and interconnections may be protected only if the whole combination is original as provided by the first paragraph.
Art. 4. The right of the proprietor of a protected topography in an integrated circuit shall not depend on whether the circuit is incorporated in a product or not.
Art. 5. The rights in a protected topography shall apply neither to the technological projects, processes and means involved in making the topography or an integrated circuit nor to the information stored by the integrated circuit.
* Romanian title: Lege privind protectia topografiilor circuitelor integrate.
Entry into force: June 9, 1995.
Source: Monitorul Oficial al României, of March 9, 1995, No. 45, pp.1 to 5.
Note: Translation by the International Bureau of WIPO on the basis of an English translation communicated by the Romanian authorities.
** Added by WIPO.
Chapter II Right to Protection
Art. 6. Romanian natural and legal persons as well as foreign natural persons having their domicile in Romania and foreign legal persons having their place of business in Romania may enjoy the protection of a topography according to the provisions of this Law.
Foreign natural and legal persons having their domicile or place of business abroad may enjoy the provisions of this Law as provided by the international conventions to which Romania is a party or, where there are no such conventions, on a reciprocal basis.
Art. 7. A person entitled to legal protection of a topography may be represented before the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks by a professional representative.
Foreign natural and legal persons having their domicile or place of business abroad shall be required to be represented by a professional representative; such representative shall have his domicile or place of business in Romania.
Art. 8. The right to protection of a topography of an integrated circuit shall belong to the creator of the topography or to his successor in title. Where there are several creators, as joint authors, the rights shall belong to them jointly.
Art. 9. Where the topography has been created by an employee in the course of his duties, the right to the protection of the topography shall belong to the enterprise where the creator of the topography is employed.
Where the topography has been created as a result of an order placed by a natural or legal person, the right to protection of that topography shall belong to the person who placed the order.
Where there are contract provisions contrary to the provisions of the preceding paragraphs, the contract provisions shall prevail.
Art. 10. Where a topography has been exploited commercially, in Romania or abroad, such topography shall be protected according to this Law if the application for registration is filed at the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks within a time limit of two years from the date of first commercial exploitation.
Art. 11. Where a topography has not been exploited commercially for 15 years since it was created or first encoded, the right to protection shall lapse in the following cases:
(a) if the topography has not been registered, it may no longer be the subject matter of an application for registration;
(b) if the topography has been registered, the rights conferred by registrations shall terminate.
Chapter III Registration of Topographies
Art. 12. The registration of a topography shall depend on the regular filing of an application for registration at the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.
An application for registration shall have as its subject matter only one topography; a topography may be registered only once.
Art. 13. An application for registration shall be deemed to have been regularly filed if the following documents have been submitted:
(a) written request for the registration of the topography specifying at least
– creator's (creators') full name and address;
– applicant's full name or designation and address where the applicant differs from the creator of the topography;
– indications with respect to the applicant's right to register the topography;
– designation and purpose of the integrated circuit to be manufactured by using the topography;
– date of creation or of first encoding of the topography;
– date of the first commercial exploitation of the topography where appropriate;
– full name or designation and address of the professional representative, where appropriate;
– applicant's signature or that of his professional representative, where appropriate;
(b) technical documentation comprising graphic materials and texts providing sufficient information for the identification of the topography and for pointing out the electronic function of the integrated circuit incorporating the topography;
(c) two copies of the integrated circuit, if manufactured and exploited commercially;
(d) power of attorney, for the professional representative (where appropriate);
(e) receipt of payment of fees as provided in Article 44(a) to (e).
All the above-mentioned documents shall be filed in typewritten form in the Romanian language.
Art. 14. The State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall examine whether applications for the registration of topographies meet the legal requirements for regular filing; where the requirements are met, the Office shall register the topography in the National Register of Topographies and shall publish the topography as provided in Article 17 and shall also issue a certificate of registration within three months of the official date of regular filing.
The official date of regular filing shall be the date when the application is filed.
Art. 15. Where, upon examining the application, deficiencies are found in relation to the documents specified by Article 13, the applicant shall be notified in writing within 15 days from the date of filing and shall be given two months for the necessary remedies.
Where all remedies have been made within the prescribed time limit, the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall follow the procedure provided by Article 14.
In such case, the official date of regular filing shall be the date when all the necessary rectifications and additions are received.
Where the necessary rectifications and additions have not been submitted within the given time limit, the application shall be refused and the grounds of refusal shall be made known to the applicant in writing.
Art. 16. Refusal of an application for the registration of a topography may be contested by administrative means, addressed to the Director General of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks within three months of communication; the notice of appeal shall be examined within two months from filing. The decision taken by the Director of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall be transmitted to the parties concerned within one month and may be appealed at the Law Court of Bucharest within three months of the date of communication.
Art. 17. The registration of topographies shall be published in the Official Bulletin of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks within two months of the date when the registration certificate was issued.
The proprietor shall be required to inform the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks, in the shortest time possible, of any changes in the name of the applicant or his representative. The Office shall make the necessary changes in the National Register of Topographies and shall publish them within three months of the date when the communication was received.
Art. 18. The documents which have been regularly filed may be laid open to public inspection at the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks after the publication of the registration.
Documents comprising information declared as a trade secret by the applicant shall not be made available to the public.
Chapter IV Rights
Art. 19. A topography of an integrated circuit registered at the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall be protected throughout the territory of Romania over a period starting with the official date of registration of the topography or with the date of the first commercial exploitation of the topography, whichever is earlier, and ending with the last day of the tenth calendar year following the year when the period of protection started.
Art. 20. The proprietor of a registered topography shall have the right, over the whole period of protection, to exploit the topography as well as the right to allow or to forbid other persons to exploit the topography.
Art. 21. The proprietor shall have the right to mark the integrated circuits manufactured on the basis of the protected topography, by using a capital “T”.
Art. 22. For the purposes of this Law, “exploitation of a topography” shall mean:
(a) reproduction of the topography, in whole or in part, except those parts which are not original according to the provisions of Article 3, either by incorporating it in an integrated circuit or by other means;
(b) importation, sale or distribution in any manner, for commercial purposes, of the topography or of the integrated circuit incorporating it.
Art. 23. Creators of topographies shall have the right to have their name and capacity as creators mentioned in the certificate of registration and in the texts concerning the registered topographies published by the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.
Art. 24. Creators of topographies who are not proprietors according to Article 9 shall have the right to compensation established by a contract concluded between them and the proprietors of the protected topography.
Art. 25. The reproduction of the topography by a third party, according to the provisions of Article 22(a) shall not be deemed an infringement if:
(a) it has been carried out in private, without any commercial purpose;
(b) it has been made for the purposes of evaluation, analysis, research or teaching.
Art. 26. Any person who, starting from the evaluation or analysis of a protected topography, creates a new topography which fulfills the condition of originality provided by Article 3 shall have the right to exploit the new topography; such action shall not be deemed an infringement of the rights of the proprietor of the first topography.
Art. 27. The exploitation of a topography according to Article 22(b) by a person who has purchased the integrated circuit in good faith without being able to know that such integrated circuit incorporated a protected topography which was reproduced illegally, shall not be deemed an infringement of the rights of the proprietor of the topography.
As of the date on which such person learns that the topography is protected, he shall no longer have the right to purchase similar integrated circuits without the proprietor's authorization, but will be permitted to further exploit commercially the integrated circuits that were purchased or contracted before that date, against payment of fair compensation to the proprietor.
Art. 28. Where the protected topography or the integrated circuit incorporating it have been sold by the proprietor of the topography himself or with his authorization, exploitation of it by a third party shall not be deemed an infringement of the proprietor's rights.
Art. 29. Any person who, previous to the date of entry into force of this Law, has manufactured or certified for production an integrated circuit the topography of which was later registered with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks by another person, shall have the right to manufacture and sell that circuit; this action shall neither be deemed an infringement of the proprietor's rights nor be assimilated to the rights conferred by the registration of the topography.
Chapter V Transfer of Rights
Art. 30. The right to protection as well as the right deriving from the registration of a topography may be transferred in whole or in part by assignment or by legal or testamentary succession.
Art. 31. The rights conferred by the registration of a topography may be transferred by grant of exclusive or non-exclusive licenses.
Art. 32. The transfer of rights provided by Articles 30 and 31 shall have effect for third parties starting with the date on which the transfer is registered with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.
Art. 33. The Law Court of Bucharest may grant a non-voluntary license for exploitation to those persons who, despite their efforts, have not been able to obtain the proprietor's authorization to exploit a protected topography where:
(a) the grant of a license is necessary in states of emergency as far as national defense and security are concerned or for the prevention or elimination of the effects of natural disasters, or where infringement of competition law or non-observance of the national standards concerning environmental pollution occurs.
(b) four years at least have passed since the beginning of the period of protection and the topography has not been commercially exploited on the territory of Romania.