The Criminal Framework of Industrial-Property Protection
Infringement of patents and other industrial-property objects is criminalized in Georgia by Article 189-1 of the Criminal Code, and this single norm covers the whole industrial-property family: inventions, utility models, designs, integrated-circuit topographies, new plant and animal varieties. American patent-venue doctrines are of no use here: Georgian qualification is built on two classical axes — appropriation of authorship and purposive unlawful use — and each axis has its own sanction frame. The procedures of granting and invalidating patents are governed by patent legislation and lie outside the scope of this page.
Appropriation of Authorship and Coercion — the First and Second Parts
The first part of the article governs the appropriation of authorship of an invention, utility model, design, integrated-circuit topology, or new plant or animal variety, or coercion into co-authorship — a fine or corrective labour for up to two years. The second part aggravates the same conduct where committed more than once — house arrest from six months to one year, or imprisonment for up to three years. These parts protect the inventor's personal rights — from appropriation of the name and from violation of the voluntariness of collaboration. In the industrial-property field this personal axis is of particular importance: the authorship of an invention is documented at the application level, and it is precisely that documentation to which an appropriation charge is opposed — the dispute here is not only legal but a matter of the factual reconstruction of priority: who, when, and on which sources developed the solution.
Purposive Unlawful Use — the Third and Fourth Parts
The third part covers the property side: the unlawful use of another's invention, utility model, design, integrated-circuit topology, or new plant or animal variety with prior knowledge, for the purpose of receiving income — a fine or house arrest from one to two years. The fourth part aggravates commission by a group with prior conspiracy — imprisonment for up to three years. The central elements of this frame are: prior knowledge — the person must know that he is using another's object; and purpose — the receipt of income, which the prosecution must establish separately. In practice, the purpose element generates dispute because it is evaluative: one and the same technical operation may be part of research activity or of commercial exploitation, and the boundary between the two states often depends precisely on establishing the purpose of income.