rds should be included in the section since the most common defense to any infringement action is invalidity of the patent or trademark. Therefore, exclusive jurisdiction should extend to infringement actions. [NOTE 8]. Of note is that this section confers jurisdiction for Trademarks but not Copyrights. One would suppose the argument for excluding Copyrights is that Copyrights in many jurisdictions do not require registration. However, Trademarks also are often derived from common law usage and are not necessarily also registered. Article 18 of the Convention expressly prohibits certain grounds of jurisdiction. Of note, is the prohibition of what is commonly known as “tag jurisdiction.” Countries such as the United States and Australia commonly exercise this jurisdiction over persons who are merely passing through the State. [NOTE 9]. In contrast, Article 17 permits states to adopt jurisdictional practices so long as they are not prohibited by Article 18. This leaves a small loophole for states to ‘work around’ the Convention. Articles 23-28 establish outlines for enforcing judgments. Specifically, Article 24 provides that no judgment shall be enforceable under the Convention whose basis was an Article 17 jurisdiction. Perhaps this is in effect a deterrent to exploiting the loophole mentioned previously. Article 28 provides States with some discretion to refuse to enforce judgments in circumstances where a party’s right to Due Process has been violated. III. Conclusion The Hague Draft Convention seems to be a good starting point from which to tackle the problem of the information age’s impact on traditional intellectual property law. It does address the issues of jurisdiction and enforcement. However, it does not address the highly complex issue of “conflict of laws,” perhaps because such an agreement may be ill-equipped to do so. Good starting point or not, many believe that the only real...
