Intellectual Property Rights and International Free Trade —New Jurisprudence of International Exhaustion Doctrine under Traditional Legal System

Abstract

The interaction between the exhaustion of intellectual property rights and the parallel importation has been being one of the most controversial issues under international intellectual property laws. Consequently, the main purposes of this article is to assure that intellectual property law—in particular, the exhaustion doctrine—is best fit to deal with the issue of the conflict between intellectual property rights and international free trade. Meanwhile, this article is also to determine that the international exhaustion doctrine is the optimal legal model for the harmonization goal through examining the theoretical arguments and observing legal experience in the global community.