45. Article 3 is an expanded and re-designed version of the provision contained in Article 3 of the text of the draft Treaty presented to the fourth session of the Committee of Experts (document IPIC/CE/IV/2).
46.
Ad paragraph (1): This paragraph, which makes explicit that which was implicit in Article 3 of the previous version of the draft Treaty, enshrines the fundamental obligation of Contracting Parties, namely, to secure intellectual property protection in respect of layout-designs in accordance with the Treaty and, in particular, to adopt adequate measures and appropriate legal remedies to this end.
47. Typical measures to ensure the "prevention" of acts considered unlawful under Article 6 would be seizure and injunction. Typical "legal remedies" where such acts have been committed would be civil remedies (in particular, damages) and penal sanctions. It may be noted that none of the measures or legal remedies is specified. The Treaty would leave it to each Contracting Party to choose the measures and remedies that correspond to its legal system and tradition. What is required is that the measures should be adequate "to ensure" the prevention of the acts in question, and that the legal remedies available when such acts have been committed should be appropriate.
48. Ad subparagraph (2)(a): Subparagraph (2)(a) clarifies the characteristics of those layout-designs in respect of which the obligation to secure intellectual property protection established by paragraph (1) applies. Such layout-designs must be original. In accordance with views expressed during the fourth session of the Committee of Experts that favored the clarification of the meaning of "original," subparagraph (2)(a) specifies that two conditions must be fulfilled in order to satisfy the requirement of originality, namely, that the layout-designs must be the result of the creators' own intellectual effort, and that they must not be commonplace among creators of layout-designs and manufacturers of microchips at the time of their creation.
49. Ad subparagraph (2)(b): This subparagraph deals with the situation in which a layout-design consists of a combination of elements that are commonplace. In such circumstances, the subparagraph provides that protection shall be accorded to such a layout-design only if the combination, taken as a whole, satisfies the requirement of originality as elaborated in subparagraph (2)(a).