Personal Rights of Inventors in the Polish Legal System

1. Intellectual property law and its teaching are developing continuously. A particularly clear indication of this fact are new categories of inventions, e.g. recent pharmaceutical and current biotechnological inventions. A discussion has arisen in this regard concerning the foundations of legal construction in the area of patent law concerning, for example, the term ‘invention’ and its definition as opposed to scientific discovery, the novelty of the invention (in connection with its second and subsequent modes of utilization), and the commercial applicability of the invention. Another indication for the above-mentioned tendency can be observed in the establishment of trans-national patent law systems. A problem, which has generated little interest in the last years, in particular with the member states of the Convention on the Grant of European Patents (Munich Convention) is the position of the inventor (the creator of the invention) and the content of his rights, and with that the inventor's personal rights. Fewer and fewer academic publications, rulings by patent offices as well as decisions by the courts are dedicated to this problem.

2. My humble contribution to this collection of essays honoring Professor Dr. Straus on the occasion of his birthday will involve a discussion of this question. I submit that three conditions justify this choice: firstly Professor Straus has dealt extensively and keenly with this problem. I am of the opinion that this problem with respect to new methods in creative activity has not lost any of its current importance. On the one hand, they support humanity's intellectual activities by means of the most modern technical accomplishments, and on the other hand they enrich collections of indigenous heritage. In the countries that have recently become members of the Munich Convention, including the Republic of Poland, the corresponding research seems necessary in order to clarify the situation as to whether national legal requirements do not conflict with the provisions of the agreement. In Poland, the problem involves the alignment of the Industrial Property Law (IPL) with the provisions of the above-mentioned Convention. One must pose the question whether the requirements of the IPL in its present wording fulfill the requirements of the Constitution and harmonize with the principles of civil law, in particular with the Civil Code (CC)?