ICC Intellectual Property Roadmap

The popular ICC Intellectual Property Roadmap is the result of collaboration between over eighty IP experts from around the globe. It is widely read by business, policy and legal professionals worldwide, both within and outside ICC’s international membership. Published every two to three years, the IP Roadmap has been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and other languages.

The 2017 edition was launched on World Intellectual Property Day on 26 April 2017. This new edition of the Roadmap reflects the most pressing issues that have been reshaping intellectual property in recent years.

The year 2016 saw both the development of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the signing of the Paris Agreement, the latter aimed at combatting climate change. Innovation and collaboration will play an important role in helping achieve these goals and IP will be a key factor in enabling this.

Digitisation has also continued to spawn new processes and technologies, with consequences both for the management of IP assets and the enforcement of IP rights. The increasingly data-driven nature of the economy has also raised question about rights and responsibilities over data.

The critical need to improve trade secrets protection resulted in the recent adoption of important new legislation in the EU and the US. Other areas of intellectual property also saw notable developments through case-law and legislation and an increasing number established specialised jurisdictions to resolve intellectual property disputes.

All of these newer issues are covered in the 2017 Roadmap. Other chapters have been substantially updated, and the sections on valuation and monetisation of IP assets, patents and standards, designs, trademark restrictions on packaging, domain names, plant varieties, information products, sustainable development, climate change, innovation and competition have been largely rewritten.