For information only - not an official document
UNIS/L/140
1 July 2010
UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Secured Transactions, Supplement on Security Rights in Intellectual Property Adopted
VIENNA, 1 July (UN Information Service) - On 29 June 2010, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law adopted the "UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Secured Transactions, Supplement on Security Rights in Intellectual Property (the Supplement)". The Supplement will be the third text prepared by the Commission in the field of secured transactions law after the UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Secured Transactions (2007, the "Guide") and the United Nations Convention on the Assignment of Receivables in International Trade (2001).
After completing the Guide in 2007, the Commission entrusted Working Group VI (Security Interests) with the preparation of a draft Supplement to the Guide dealing with security rights in intellectual property, recognizing that States would need guidance as to how the recommendations of the Guide would apply in an intellectual property context and as to the adjustments that need to be made in their laws to avoid inconsistencies between secured transactions law and law relating to intellectual property. The Working Group, after five one-week sessions, completed its work in February 2010 and the Commission, at its forty-third session, finalized and adopted the Supplement.
The overall objective of the Guide is to promote low-cost credit by promoting access to secured credit. In line with this objective, the Supplement is intended to make secured credit more available and at lower cost to intellectual property owners and other intellectual property right holders, thus enhancing the value of intellectual property rights as security for credit. The Supplement, however, seeks to achieve this objective without interfering with fundamental policies of law relating to intellectual property. States are recommended to utilize the Guide and the Supplement to assess the economic efficiency of their secured transactions regimes as well as their intellectual property regimes and to give favourable consideration to the Guide and the Supplement when revising or adopting legislation relevant to secured transactions and intellectual property.
With respect to future work, the Commission decided that Working Group VI should be entrusted with the preparation of a text on registration of security rights in movable assets.
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The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) is the core legal body of the United Nations system in the field of international trade law. Its mandate is to remove legal obstacles to international trade by progressively modernizing and harmonizing trade law. It prepares legal texts in a number of key areas such as international commercial dispute settlement, electronic commerce, insolvency, security interests, sale of goods, transport law, procurement and infrastructure development. UNCITRAL also provides technical assistance to law reform activities, including assisting Member States to review and assess their law reform needs and to draft the legislation required to implement UNCITRAL texts. The UNCITRAL Secretariat is located in Vienna, Austria, and maintains a website at www.uncitral.org.
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For information contact:
Jenny
Clift
Senior Legal Officer
UNCITRAL Secretariat
Email:
jenny.clift@uncitral.org
