Joint ownership of designs

Joint ownership of IP is a mess, and my advice is always "Don't go there!". But sometimes it is unavoidable, and that tends also to be when no prior agreement has been drawn up to regulate the rights of the parties. So, if you are a co-owner, can you, without prior permission,

• Work the invention yourself (and have someone work it for your "home use")?
• License others non-exclusively?
• Assign your share?
• Sue third parties?

AIPPI's Q194 reviews the position worldwide, and the conclusion seems to be that each country has a different set of answers, and in many cases the answer is different for patents than for copyright, and unknown, except by analogy, for designs. And even there, it isn't clear whether patents or copyright are the appropriate basis for analogy. And as if that wasn't confusing enough, what happens where the co-owners are in different countries - as is often the case where the final production design work is done in Taiwan or China?

The Design Law Wiki carries an article analysing the EU position. It isn't pretty, but , very broadly, most (not all) countries responding allow each individual co-owner to sue separately of the others, but do not allow her to license separately of the others. Which laws apply to a jointly-owned Community Design are determined by the complex, yet incomplete, algorithm of CDR Article 27, for which Spain is the default country. We can only hope that AIPPI succeed in finding a harmonised solution, and that the EU can be persuaded to follow it.