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
Member states of the World Trade Organization is an observer state and begun negotiations in 1996. The following table lists all current members, their accession date and previous GATT membership. The following table lists all 23 WTO observers. Within five years of being granted observer status by the WTO, states are required to begin negotiating their accession to the organization. The following table lists all the UN member states and UN observer states which are neither members nor observers of the WTO. Member states of the World Trade Organization The original member states of the World Trade Organization are the parties to the GATT after ratifying the