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Chapter I
Object of Protection
Topographies of semiconductor products shall be protected on the territory of Romania by registration with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks, under the conditions provided for by this law.
For the purposes of this law, the terms and phrases below shall be
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Republished within the meaning of Art. III of Law 337/2005 for amending and completing the Law 16/1995 on the protection of topographies of integrated circuits, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 1094 of 5 December 2005, the text being given a new numbering.
Law 16/1995 on the protection of topographies of integrated circuits was published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no.45 of 9 March 1995 and amended and completed by:
defined as follows:
a) BOPI - Official Industrial Property Bulletin - Topography Section;
b) semiconductor product - the final or intermediate form of any product which
- is intended to perform, exclusively or not, an electronic function;
c) topography of a semiconductor product - a series of related images, however fixed or encoded, which represents the three-dimension configuration of the layers which form a semiconductor product, and in which each image reproduces the pattern or a part of the pattern of a surface of the semiconductor product, in any manufacturing stage;
d) commercial exploitation - sale, rental, leasing or any other method of commercial distribution or offer made for these purposes. However, the commercial exploitation does not include the exploitation under conditions of confidentiality; it shall be applied on condition that no further distribution to third parties takes place, except where the exploitation of the topography takes place under conditions of confidentiality required by the necessary measures for the protection of the main national security interests.
The rights of the owner of a protected topography in the semiconductor product shall not depend on whether the latter is incorporated or not in a product.
Art. 5
The protection granted according to Art. 3 shall be applied only to the actual topography, any concept, process, system, technique or encoded information embedded in said topography being excluded.
Chapter II
Right to Protection
(1)The following entities shall benefit by the protection granted by this law:
a) natural persons which are nationals of a Member State of the European Union or of the World Trade Organization, or which have their place of residence on the territory of such State;
b) companies or other legal persons having a real and effective industrial or commercial establishment on the territory of Romania or of a Member State of the European Union or of the World Trade Organization.
Art. 8
a) first commercially exploit in Romania or in the European Union a topography which has not yet been exploited commercially anywhere in the world; and
b) have been exclusively authorized to exploit commercially the topography on the territory of Romania or of the European Union by a person entitled to dispose of it.
Where a topography has been exploited commercially, in Romania or abroad, said topography may benefit by protection under the conditions of this law, only if the registration application is filed with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks within a two-year time limit from the date of the first commercial exploitation.
Where a topography has not been exploited commercially for 15 years since it was created or first encoded, at the lapse of this time limit, the right to protection shall cease as follows:
a) if the topography has not been registered, it may no longer be the subject of an application for registration;
b) if the topography has been registered, the rights conferred by the registration become extinct.
Chapter III
Registration of Topographies
(1) An application for registration of a topography shall be deemed as having been regularly filed, if the following documents are filed:
a) a written request for the registration of the topography, specifying at least:
-creator’s (creators’) full name and address;
- designation and destination of the semiconductor product to be manufactured by using the topography;
- date of fixation or of first encoding of the topography;
b) a technical documentation comprising graphical material and texts providing sufficient information for allowing the identification of the topography and for pointing out the electronic function of the semiconductor product incorporating the topography;
c) two copies of the semiconductor product, if it was manufactured and commercially exploited; d) power of attorney, for the professional representative, where appropriate; e) proof of payment of legal fees
(2) All documents mentioned above shall be typed in Romanian and filed as such.
Art. 15
(1) Where, upon examining the application, deficiencies are found in relation to the documents provided for in Art. 13, the applicant shall be notified in writing within 15 days from the date of filing the application and a two-month time limit shall be given for making the necessary completions and rectifications.
(2) Where all said completions and rectifications have been made within the prescribed time limit, the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall follow the procedure provided for under Art.14.
(3)The date of the regular filing shall be, in this case, the date when all completions and rectifications are received.
(4) Where the required completions and rectifications have not been submitted within the prescribed time limit, the application shall be rejected and the grounds of rejection shall be notified in writing to the applicant.
Art. 18
(1) After the publication of the registration, the documentation in the regular filing of the topographies shall be available to interested persons at the headquarters of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.
(2) Documents containing information declared by the applicant as trade secrets shall not be available to the public.
Art. 19
Chapter IV
Rights
The exclusive rights shall become extinct 10 years from the earlier of the following dates:
a) the end of the calendar year in which the topography is first commercially exploited anywhere in the world;
b) the end of the calendar year in which the application for registration is regularly filed.
(1) The owner of a registered topography shall have, over the whole period of protection, the exclusive right to commercially exploit the topography as well as the exclusive right to authorize or prohibit the following acts:
a) reproduction of the topography in so far as it is protected under Art. 3, paragraph (1);
b) commercial exploitation or the importation for that purpose of a topography or of a semiconductor product manufactured by using the topography.
(2) The provisions of paragraph 1 shall not apply to: a) the reproduction of a topography privately for non-commercial aims; b) the reproduction for the purpose of analysing, evaluating or teaching
of concepts, processes, systems or techniques embodied in the topography or the topography itself;
c) the acts in relation to a protected topography created on the basis of an analysis and evaluation of another topography, carried out according to letter b).
(3) The exclusive right to authorize or prohibit the acts mentioned under paragraph (1), letter b) shall not apply to the acts committed after the topography or the semiconductor product has been put on the market in Romania or in the European Union by the owner or with his consent.
The exclusive rights provided for under Art. 21 shall come into existence:
a) on the date when the registration application is regularly filed;
b) on the date when the topography is first commercially exploited anywhere in the world, if this date is earlier than the date under letter a).
The owner shall be entitled to mark the semiconductor products manufactured on the basis of the protected topography by using the capital letter “T”.
Art. 24
Creators of topographies shall be entitled to have their name and their status as creators mentioned in the certificate of registration and in the publications of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks relating to the registered topographies.
Art.25
Creators of topographies who are not topography owners according to Art. 9, shall have the right to a remuneration which is established by a contract concluded between them and the owner of the protected topography.
Art. 27
For the period prior to the coming into existence of the exclusive rights, according to the provisions of Art. 22, the person having the right to protection under this law, who can prove that a third party has fraudulently reproduced, commercially exploited or imported the topography for such purposes may claim damages according to the common law.
Chapter V
Transfer of Rights
The right to protection and the rights deriving from the registration of a topography shall be transferable in whole or in part, by assignment and by legal or testamentary succession.
The rights conferred by the registration of a topography may be transferred by granting exclusive or non-exclusive licenses.
Art. 30
The transfer of rights provided by Art. 28 and 29 shall have effects for third parties only starting with the date when the mention of the transfer registered with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks has been published in BOPI.
(1) The Law Court of Bucharest may grant a compulsory license for exploitation to persons who, despite their efforts, have not been able to obtain the owner’s authorization to exploit a protected topography, if:
a) the grant of the license is necessary in emergency cases referring to national defence and security, prevention or elimination of the effects of natural disasters, infringement of the Competition Law no.21/1996, as republished, or non-observance of national standards concerning environmental pollution;
b) at least 4 years have elapsed from the start of the protection period and the topography has not been commercially exploited on the territory of Romania.
(3) The decisions of the Law Court of Bucharest concerning the grant of a compulsory licence, as well as those concerning the withdrawal thereof may be appealed against with the Court of Appeal of Bucharest within 15 days since communication.
(4) The final and irrevocable decisions concerning the grant of a compulsory licence or the withdrawal of the compulsory licence, as the case may be, shall be communicated by the interested person to the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks which shall enter them into the National Register of Topographies and publish the mention of said decisions in BOPI within 30 days from the communication.
The State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall publish in BOPI all the assignments and licenses registered in respect of the protected topographies, as well as the changes thereupon, within 3 months since registration.
Chapter VI
Extinction of Rights
The owner may renounce the protection of a registered topography any time during the period of protection; the renunciation results in the extinction of the owner’s rights, with all the consequences mentioned under Art.34, paragraph (1), starting with the date of publishing the renunciation request in BOPI.
Art. 36
The State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall enter in the National Register of Topographies and shall publish in BOPI, any change concerning the protection of topographies, occurred as a consequence of applying the provisions under Art. 34 - 36.
Chapter VII
Defence of Rights
Litigations concerning the topography authorship or ownership, as well as those concerning the rights deriving from the registration of topographies creator’s patrimonial rights included - or from the assignment or license contracts shall be settled by the law courts.
Where a final and irrevocable court decision has established that a person, other than the owner of the registration certificate, is entitled to be granted the topography protection, the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall issue the registration certificate to the entitled person, shall enter the change of ownership in the National Register of Topographies and shall publish the same in BOPI.
Where the rights on a registered topography have ceased for a certain period of time, as a consequence of the renunciation, the forfeiture of rights or the cancellation of the registration, the damages and the other patrimonial rights acquired by the owner for the above-mentioned period of time, shall be refunded to the persons from which they have been acquired.
At the request of the law court, the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall be obliged to submit the papers, documents and information necessary for judging the cause entrusted to the law court, papers and documents to be returned at the end of the trial. Summoning to the court shall be made only for this purpose.
(3) Failure to pay the fees within the time limits provided by the law shall cause the non-performance of the concerned procedure.
Chapter VIII
Final Provisions
This law shall enter into force 3 months after its publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I.
This law transposes the Council Directive 87/54 EEC of 16 December 1986 on the legal protection of topographies of semiconductor products, published in the Official Journal of the Economic Communities no. L 024/27.01.1987.
Reproduced below is the Art. II of the Law no. 337/2005 which does not form part of the republished text of the Law . no. 16/1995 and is still applicable as provisions of the Law no.337/2005:
“Within 3 months from the publication of this law, the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks shall issue Norms for implementing the Law no 16/1995 on the Protection of Topographies of Integrated Circuits with all subsequent modifications, as well as with the amendments and completions brought by this law, which shall be published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I.
On the date of entering into force of the norms provided by paragraph 2, the Government Decision no. 535/1996 for the approval of the Implementing Regulations concerning the registration of topographies of integrated circuits, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 172 of 1 August 1996 shall be abrogated.”