Industrial design rights in the European Union of industrial design rights is required by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS, Arts. 25 & 26), to which the European Union is a party. The Regulation on Community designs provides for the recognition of the priority date of an application for design right registration in a country which is either a member of the World Trade Organization or a party to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. On 1 January 2008, the European Union became a party to the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs
World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 2003 World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 2003 Trade ministers from 146 members of the World Trade Organization, representing 93 percent of global Commerce, convened in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003. The goal of this meeting was to set a direction for nations among the World Trade Organization to come to agreements and negotiations about agriculture, non agricultural market access, services, and special treatment for developing countries. The negotiations were supposed to be reached by January 1, 2005. Although the agreements had a set date to come to terms, the Cancun Ministerial Conference ended up failing in their mission and did