Civil Law Systems versus Common Law Systems

The world can roughly be divided into those countries that follow common and civil law traditions. Common law traditions are found in most present and former members of the British Commonwealth; subject to caveats that in South Africa and Quebec the basic legal tradition is civil law (Roman-Dutch and French respectively) although intellectual property laws and their application follow the common law pattern. In the rest of the world civil law traditions apply. Outside their home in Western Europe, civil law traditions have been adopted as a result of a colonial legacy, as in Latin America and francophone Africa, as a result of a deliberate act of copying, as in Turkey, Japan, Egypt and Eastern Europe or as a result of a combination of both, as in Taiwan and Korea, where the Japanese imposed their own legal system (copied from the Germans) during their period of colonial domination (Taiwan 1895-1945, Korea 1910-1945). It should, however, be noted that within the civil law family there are difference between whether the predominate influence was that of France (most "latin" countries) or of Germany (most East Asian countries that have adopted a civil law tradition).

Much has been written about the differences in philosophy between common and civil law systems. While in some areas of the law, the differences in philosophy can lead to significant differences in approach to substantive law. Usually these differences in philosophy between the common and civil law system do not have a large significance in the patent field.