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GAZETTE
JULY 1995
highlighted the enormous reduction in
the volume of Irish patent applications
following Ireland'is ratification of the
European Patent Convention during
1992. This is due to the fact that, since
ratification, Ireland can be designated
for patent protection in applications
filed centrally with the European Patent
Office in Munich. Inventors seeking
protection for their inventions in this
country need no longer make
application direct to the Irish Patents
Office. In 1991, the last full year of
operation of the 1964 Act, 4 , 5 80
applications were filed. In 1993, the
first full year of operation of the new
1992 Act, that figure had dropped to
1,017 of which 533 applications were
for short-term patents. A proportionate
reduction was experienced in the
United Kingdom following their
ratification of the Eruopean Patent
Convention in 1977. This has meant
that a knowledge of the law, practice
and procedure under the European
Patent Convention and the Patent Co-
operation Treaty is now of pre-eminent
importance for the practitioner. It is a
criticism of the latest edition of Terrell
that it still concerns itself primarily
with the law, practice and procedure
before the UK Patents Office; though it
must be saiti there is a useful summary
of European practice and procedure.
With the rapidly declining importance
of national Patent systems it is likely
that the next edition of this work will
be more heavily biased towards a
treatment of the law, practice and
procedure before the European
Patent Office and the Patent Co-
operation Treaty.
Martin Tierney
Leading Cases on the
Laws of the Eu r opean
Commun i t i es
Sixth Edition, Edited by D. Curtin,
M. van Empel, E.L. Volker and J.A.
Winter, Europa Institute, University
of Amsterdam, Kluwer Law and
Taxation, Publishers, Deventer, The
Netherlands, 1994, xix + 795pp.
The late and celebrated
Karl
Llewelyn
( 1 8 83 - 1962)
Columbia Law
S c ho o l 's renowned professor,
spokesman for the American Realist
Movement, best known for his writing
on jurisprudence, commercial law,
legal anthropology and legal
education, as well as the architect of
the
Uniform Legal Code,
once told a
group of incoming law students:
"The hardest j ob of the first year is
to lop off your common sense of
justice, to knock your ethics and
your sense of justice into temporary
anaesthesia. You are to acquire the
ability to think precisely, to analyse
coldly, - and to manipulate the
machinery of the law. It is not easy
thus to turn human beings into
lawyers."
(K. Llewelyn,
The Bramble
Bush,
1930).
Whilst recognising that sometimes a
sense of justice will not assist a young
lawyer in understanding why a
promise not supported by
consideration will be unenforceable, I
profoundly disagree with the
generality of the sentiments expressed
by Professor Llewelyn. A common
sense of justice, basic common sense
and a sense of ethics, should be the
hall mark of a lawyer at any age.
Reading through the cases in
Leading
Cases of Laws of the European
Communities,
I am impressed with the
application of the common sense of
justice, hence my introduction.
Professor Schermers, one of the
initiators of the project has retired and
has been replaced by Professor
Deirdre
Curtin
of the Europa Institute
of the University of Utrecht.
Due to space restrictions, I shall only
refer to the chapter headings all of
which are sub-divided into sections.
The headings are: Foundations of
Community Law; Institutions and
Powers of Delegation; Judicial
Protection; The Relationship Between
Community and National Law; The
Four Freedoms; Competition Policy;
Community Policies; and External
Relations including the Common
Trade Policy.
The present writer regrets the
omission of general introductions to
each topic and references to further
reading but understands that the
editors must keep the book within
tolerable proportions.
Practitioners can aspire to gain a true
insight into the implementation of
European Law by reading this book;
they have available to them a handy
source of basic reference material.
Dr Eamonn G Hall
The Law Reform Commission
Report on the Hague
Convention Abolishing the
Requirement of Legalisation
for Foreign Public Documents
Law Reform Commission, Dublin,
1995, xiii + 133pp., Softback, £10.
This Report examines the case for
Ireland becoming a party to the Hague
Convention of 5th October 1961 or, to
give the Convention its full title, the
Hague Convention Abolishing the
Requirement of Legislation for
Foreign Public Documents. The
Convention was adopted at the 9th
Session of the Hague Conference on
Private International Law in that year
and although the Convention has
remained open for signature by the
State since then, Ireland has not seen
fit, up to the present time, to ratify it.
Of the existing member states which
; comprise the European Union, only
Ireland and Denmark have failed to
ratify the Convention.
The achievement of the Convention
was to simplify the procedures -
usually tedious and frequently
complicated - which had to be
complied with in order that a foreign
public document executed in one
country would be accepted in and
given legal effect to in another country
in which it was received and intended
to be acted upon. The simple formula
was to substitute for legalisation a new
form of certification described in the
Convention as an
apostille.
Anyone
familiar with having such a document
legalised in Ireland will be aware of the
chain of verificatory signatures (and
seals) which must be applied to it in
order to render the document effective
209