Protections Against Direct and Indirect Expropriation - How the United States and the European Union use Sanctions and Bilateral Investment Treaties to Protect Intellectual Property

Sammanfattning: This paper presents an overview of how the United States and the European Union use their sanctions and Bilateral Investment Treaty policies to protect intellectual property rights overseas from expropriation. Both territories’ policies vary, with American rightsholders more capable of protecting their overseas intellectual property through the United States’ sanctions policy; European Union investors, conversely, are more likely to benefit from Bilateral Investment Treaties signed by the Member States and third countries. Domestically, both the United States and the European Union have ensured that intellectual property rights are unaffected by their sanctions policy, granting exemptions to sanctioned international entities to maintain, but not use, their frozen intellectual property assets. To assess how American and European rightsholders may use sanctions and Bilateral Investment Treaties to protect their intellectual property overseas, a case study on Russia was conducted, evaluating Russia’s recent post-2022 intellectual property amendments in the wake of US and EU sanctions. Ultimately, this paper concludes by determining that rightsholders are in a vulnerable position with regard to Russia, and that only through an extraterritorial sanction mechanism under 19 USC §1337 can American rightsholders guarantee that Russia’s latest intellectual property revisions shall be investigated. European investors are dependent entirely upon Bilateral Investment Treaties to protect against expropriation that occurs inside Russia, but have recourse under Regulation 608/2013 to seize any infringing goods once they enter the European Union.