This book explores how dissimilar patent systems remain distinctive despite international efforts towards harmonization. The dominant historical account describes harmonization as ever-growing, with familiar milestones such as the Paris Convention (1883), the World Intellectual Property Organization's founding (1967), and the formation of current global institutions of patent governance. Yet throughout the modern period, countries fashioned their own mechanisms for fostering technological invention. Notwithstanding the harmonization project, diversity in patent cultures remains stubbornly persistent. No single comprehensive volume describes the comparative historical development of patent practices. Patent Cultures: Diversity and Harmonization in Historical Perspective seeks to fill this gap. Tracing national patenting from imperial expansion in the early nineteenth century to our time, this work asks fundamental questions about the limits of globalization, innovation's cultural dimension, and how historical context shapes patent policy. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the contested role of patents in the modern world.

In the political fight over copyright, Internet advocacy has reshaped the playing field. This was shown in the 2012 'SOPA blackout', when the largest online protest in history stopped two copyright bills in their tracks. This protest was the culmination of an intellectual and political evolution more than a decade in the making. This book examines the debate over digital copyright, from the late 1980s through early 2012, and the new tools of political communication involved in the advocacy around the issue. Drawing on methods from legal studies, political science and communications, it explores the rise of a coalition seeking more limited copyright, as well as how these early-adopting, technology-savvy policy advocates used online communication to shock the world. It compares key bills, congressional debates, and offline and online media coverage using quantitative and qualitative methods to create a rigorous study for researchers that is also accessible to a general audience.

Master the complexities of modern intellectual property law with this comprehensive, reader-friendly text! Throughout the book, you'll find sample agreements, forms, checklists of paralegal tasks, statutes, realistic case studies, and excerpts of real cases involving interesting issues (such as the copyright ability of the Batmobile, tattoos) that will help you prepare for a successful career as a paralegal.

Using original and archival material, The Right to Privacy traces the origins and influence of the right to privacy as a social, cultural and legal idea. Richardson argues that this right had emerged as an important legal concept across a number of jurisdictions by the end of the nineteenth century, providing a basis for its recognition as a universal human right in later centuries. This book is a unique contribution to the history of the modern right to privacy. It covers the transition from Georgian to Victorian England, developments in Second Empire France, insights in the lead up to the Burgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB) of 1896, and the experience of a rapidly modernising America around the turn of the twentieth century. It will appeal to an audience of academic and postgraduate researchers, as well as to the judiciary and legal practice.

This innovative book sets itself at the crossroads of several rapidly developing areas of research in legal and global studies related to social computing, specifically in the context of how public emergency responders appropriate content on social media platforms for emergency and disaster management. The book - a collaboration between computer scientists, ethicists, legal scholars and practitioners - should be read by anyone concerned with the ongoing debate over the corporatization and commodification of user-generated content on social media and the extent to which this content can be legally and ethically harnessed for emergency and disaster management. The collaboration was made possible by EU's FP 7 Project Slandail (# 607691, 2014-17).

In pharmaceutical patent law, the problem of lack of policy direction and inappropriate legal framework is widespread - particularly among jurisdictions with little to no pharmaceutical research or manufacturing. This book aims to inform public policy and influence debate through a comprehensive review of Hong Kong's pharmaceutical patent law. By demonstrating the need for a holistic review of pharmaceutical patent laws and evaluating Hong Kong's system in light of health policy, economic and social factors, Bryan Mercurio recommends changes to the legal framework and constructs a more efficient and effective system for Hong Kong. He thoroughly evaluates the international framework and best practice models to offer a global perspective to each issue before providing local context in the analysis. While the focus of the book is Hong Kong, the analysis on pharmaceutical patent law and policy extends to other jurisdictions facing issues on reforming their national system.

This timely and pioneering volume provides an ethnically sensitive exploration of the international trade in indigenous cultural heritage. The country reports are informative and insightful; they greatly enrich our understanding of the realities on the ground in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. The book also contains concrete and practical recommendations. It is essential reading for anyone interested in learning more about the protection and development of indigenous cultural heritage.' - Peter K. Yu, Drake University Law School, US'Christoph Graber, Karolina Kuprecht and Jessica Lai have brought together authors who know the field, given them a set of concrete themes and through meticulous editing have produced an integrated work that has the strength of collective insight. This book sets the standard for researchers working on those difficult issues raised by trade and commerce in indigenous cultural heritage.' - Peter Drahos, Australian National University This topical book brings to the fore new and standard-setting research into the connection between indigenous cultural heritage, international trade and economic development of indigenous peoples. The book is unique in taking a multi-faceted approach to cultural heritage, incorporating discussion on tangible and intangible, moveable and immoveable elements of indigenous peoples' culture. From the perspectives of several international legal fields, including trade law, intellectual property, cultural property, cultural heritage law and human rights, the book explores how indigenous peoples could be empowered to participate more actively in the trade of their cultural heritage without being compelled to renounce important traditional values. The national and local legal realities in four jurisdictions (New Zealand, Australia, United States and Canada) lay the scene for a wide-ranging analysis of various possibilities and proposals on how this might be achieved. International Trade in Indigenous Cultural Heritage will appeal to legal scholars and practitioners interested in cultural property and heritage, intellectual property, trade law and human rights. Policy-makers within governmental departments and international organisations will also find much to interest them in this detailed study as will anyone working in the field of indigenous rights. Contributors: C. Antons, F. Bandarin, C. Bell, K. Bowrey, D. Champagne, P.L.A.H. Chartrand, R.J. Coombe, S. Frankel, M. Girsberger, C.E. Goldberg, C.B. Graber, K. Kuprecht, J.C. Lai, F. Lenzerini, F. Macmillan, B. Muller, J. Scott, K. Siehr, R. Tsosie, J.F. Turcotte, B. Vezina

In the face of increasing globalisation, and a collision between global communication systems and local traditions, this book offers innovative trans-disciplinary analyses of the value of traditional cultural expressions (TCE) and suggests appropriate protection mechanisms for them. It combines approaches from history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology and law, and charts previously untravelled paths for developing new policy tools and legal designs that go beyond conventional copyright models. Its authors extend their reflections to a consideration of the specific features of the digital environment, which, despite enhancing the risks of misappropriation of traditional knowledge and creativity, may equally offer new opportunities for revitalising indigenous peoples' values and provide for the sustainability of TCE. This book will appeal to scholars interested in multidisciplinary analyses of the fragmentation of international law in the field of intellectual property and traditional cultural expressions. It will also be valuable reading for those working on broader governance and human rights issues.

Owning Ideas is a comprehensive account of the emergence of the concept of intellectual property in the United States during the long nineteenth century. In the modern information era, intellectual property has become a central economic and cultural phenomenon, and an important lever for allocating wealth and power. This book uncovers the intellectual origins of this modern concept of private property in ideas through a close study of its emergence within the two most important areas of this field: patent and copyright. By placing the development of legal concepts within their social context, this study reconstructs the radical transformation of the idea. Our modern notion of owning ideas, it argues, came into being when the ideals of eighteenth-century possessive individualism at the heart of early patent and copyright were subjected to the forces and ideology of late-nineteenth-century corporate liberalism.

When Carter Bryant began work on what would become the billion-dollar line of Bratz dolls, he was taking time off from his job at Mattel where he designed outfits for Barbie. Later, back at Mattel, he sold his concept for Bratz to rival company MGA. Orly Lobel reveals the colourful story behind the ensuing decade-long court battle. This entertaining and provocative work pits MGA against Mattel, shows how an idea turns into a product and explores the two different versions of womanhood represented by Barbie and her rival. Lobel's story is a thought-provoking contribution to the debate over creativity and intellectual property as American workers may now be asked to sign contracts granting their employers the rights to and income from their ideas.

As knowledge production has become a more salient part of the economy, intellectual property laws have expanded. From a backwater of specialists in patent, copyright, and trademark law, intellectual property has become linked to trade through successive international agreements, and appreciated as key to both economic and cultural development. Furthermore, law has begun to engage the interest of economists, political theorists, and human rights advocates. However, because each discipline sees intellectual property in its own way, legal scholarship and practice have diverged, and the debate over intellectual property law has become fragmented. This book is aimed at bringing this diverse scholarship and practice together. It examines intellectual property through successive lenses (incentive theory, trade, development, culture, and human rights) and ends with a discussion of whether and how these fragmented views can be reconciled and integrated.

Offering proof-of-concept (POC) to inventors is often a difficult task for most Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs). Through an in-depth analysis of 15 years of IP portfolio management by Oxford University Innovation (OUI), this book identifies the salient aspects of the technology transfer evolution and the role that technology transfer managers (TTMs) play in closing the gap between academia and business. Innovation Finance and Technology Transfer: Funding Proof of Concept seeks to prove that a well-managed POC Fund can achieve positive financial results and that the chances for an IP portfolio management to be "in the money" increases if the TTO is attached to an entrepreneurial University. This work illustrates how innovation based on Intellectual Property Rights protected and managed by a highly-skilled group of technology transfer managers succeeds in technology transfer. It offers a vademecum to practitioners to follow a step by step best practice procedure embraced by the Oxford TTO to manage the POC investment process. This book is valuable reading for intellectual property scholars, business school students, social sciences researchers, investment professionals and technology transfer practitioners, as well as those working in innovation think tanks and policy circles.

Intellectual property (IP) laws were drafted for tangible objects, but 3D printing technology, which digitizes objects and offers manufacturing capacity to anyone, is disrupting these laws and their underlying policies. In this timely work, Lucas S. Osborn focuses on the novel issues raised for IP law by 3D printing for the major IP systems around the world. He specifically addresses how patent and design law must wrestle with protecting digital versions of inventions and policing individualized manufacturing, how trademark law must confront the dissociation of design from manufacturing, and how patent and copyright law must be reconciled when digital versions of primarily utilitarian objects are concerned. With an even hand and keen insight, Osborn offers an innovation-centered analysis of and balanced response to the disruption caused by 3D printing that should be read by nonexperts and experts alike.

The papers in this volume represent some of the leading work on intellectual property. They address the question of how to create incentives to develop new technologies and how to protect those technologies once developed from theft. They also ask when valuable property might be developed even under weak ownership conditions. Other papers address how firms balance the tradeoffs in considering costly patent litigation and they examine the antitrust implications.
Although issues of intellectual property rights would seem to be ones of interest only to obscure groups of academics and lawyers, they have become topics of everyday discussion among the regular population. Alleged copyright infringements by people downloading music from the internet and accompanying threats of prosecution as well as charges of strategic patenting to harm competitors in recent high profile antitrust cases have placed intellectual property into public and political debate. The incentives provided by secure property rights for promoting research and development, investment, production, and exchange are well known. These are the major arguments for patents, copyrights and other forms of intellectual property.

As the world confronts global warming, there is a growing consensus that the TRIPS Agreement could be a more effective instrument for mitigating climate change. In this innovative work, Wei Zhuang systematically examines the contextual elements that can be used in the interpretation of the TRIPS Agreement with a view to enhancing innovation and transfer of environmentally sound technologies. Zhuang proposes a balanced and pro-competitive interpretation that could be pursued by policymakers and negotiators. This comprehensive, multidisciplinary study will help academics and policymakers improve their understanding of the contemporary international legal regimes governing intellectual property rights, as well as innovation and transfer of environmentally sound technologies. It also offers practical guidance for further developing a legal system capable of responding to the challenges posed by climate change.

This volume presents new research in artificial intelligence (AI) and Law with special reference to criminal justice. It brings together leading international experts including computer scientists, lawyers, judges and cyber-psychologists. The book examines some of the core problems that technology raises for criminal law ranging from privacy and data protection, to cyber-warfare, through to the theft of virtual property. Focusing on the West and China, the work considers the issue of AI and the Law in a comparative context presenting the research from a cross-jurisdictional and cross-disciplinary approach. As China becomes a global leader in AI and technology, the book provides an essential in-depth understanding of domestic laws in both Western jurisdictions and China on criminal liability for cybercrime. As such, it will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers working in the areas of AI, technology and criminal justice.

Rampant abuse, hate speech, censorship, bias, and disinformation - our Internet has problems. It is governed by technology companies - search engines, social media platforms, and infrastructure providers - whose hidden rules influence what we are allowed to see and say. In Lawless, Nicolas P. Suzor presents gripping examples of exactly how tech companies govern our digital environment and how they bend to pressure from governments and other powerful actors to censor and control the flow of information online. We are at a constitutional moment - an opportunity to rethink the basic rules of how the Internet is governed. Suzor offers a vision of a vibrant, diverse, and flourishing internet that can protect our fundamental rights from the lawless rule of tech. The culmination of more than ten years of original research, this groundbreaking work should be read by anyone who cares about the internet and the future of our shared social spaces.

Rampant abuse, hate speech, censorship, bias, and disinformation - our Internet has problems. It is governed by technology companies - search engines, social media platforms, and infrastructure providers - whose hidden rules influence what we are allowed to see and say. In Lawless, Nicolas P. Suzor presents gripping examples of exactly how tech companies govern our digital environment and how they bend to pressure from governments and other powerful actors to censor and control the flow of information online. We are at a constitutional moment - an opportunity to rethink the basic rules of how the Internet is governed. Suzor offers a vision of a vibrant, diverse, and flourishing internet that can protect our fundamental rights from the lawless rule of tech. The culmination of more than ten years of original research, this groundbreaking work should be read by anyone who cares about the internet and the future of our shared social spaces.

Many companies that have become household names have avoided billions in taxes by 'parking' their valuable intellectual property (IP) assets in holding companies located in tax-favored jurisdictions. In the United States, for example, many domestic companies have moved their IP to tax-favored states such as Delaware or Nevada, while multinational companies have done the same by setting up foreign subsidiaries in Ireland, Singapore, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. In this illuminating work, tax scholar Jeffrey A. Maine teams up with IP expert Xuan-Thao Nguyen to explain how the use of these IP holding companies has become economically unjustified and socially unacceptable, and how numerous calls for change have been made. This book should be read by anyone interested in how corporations - including Gore-Tex, Victoria's Secret, Sherwin-Williams, Toys-R-Us, Apple, Microsoft, and Uber - have avoided tax liability with IP holding companies and how different constituencies are working to stop them.

The survey and the transference are the distinctive and operative acts in the transmission of real property and, where they differ from each other, one must of necessity control the other. This book addresses the aforementioned concepts by external explanations in order to understand the discrepancies between them. It also helps to avoid expensive and wasteful litigation over boundaries that were previously not in conflict. The text offers an extensive review of the law for boundary retracement and cites numerous case examples.

Designing Disability traces the emergence of an idea and an ideal - physical access for the disabled - through the evolution of the iconic International Symbol of Access (ISA). The book draws on design history, material culture and recent critical disability studies to examine not only the development of a design icon, but also the cultural history surrounding it. Infirmity and illness may be seen as part of human experience, but 'disability' is a social construct, a way of thinking about and responding to a natural human condition. Elizabeth Guffey's highly original and wide-ranging study considers the period both before and after the introduction of the ISA, tracing the design history of the wheelchair, a product which revolutionised the mobility needs of many disabled people from the 1930s onwards. She also examines the rise of 'barrier-free architecture' in the reception of the ISA, and explores how the symbol became widely adopted and even a mark of identity for some, especially within the Disability Rights Movement. Yet despite the social progress which is inextricably linked to the ISA, a growing debate has unfurled around the symbol and its meanings. The most vigorous critiques today have involved guerrilla art, graffiti and studio practice, reflecting new challenges to the relationship between design and disability in the twenty-first century.

Non-Commercial digital piracy has seen an unprecedented rise in the wake of the digital revolution; with wide-scale downloading and sharing of copyrighted media online, often committed by otherwise law-abiding citizens. Bringing together perspectives from criminology, psychology, business, and adopting a morally neutral stance, this book offers a holistic overview of this growing phenomenon. It considers its cultural, commercial, and legal aspects, and brings together international research on a range of topics, such as copyright infringement, intellectual property, music publishing, movie piracy, and changes in consumer behaviour. This book offers a new perspective to the growing literature on cybercrime and digital security. This multi-disciplinary book is the first to bring together international research on digital piracy and will be key reading for researchers in the fields of criminology, psychology, law and business.

IP law has evolved from being a little pool to a big ocean. Corporate governance needs to respond to society's rising expectations of directors and boards as the impact of the global intellectual property ecosystem is felt. How can a responsible corporate culture of IP transparency be stimulated to create a rosy future to connect corporate communication with the desires of shareholders, investors and other stakeholders? The astonishing lack of material quantitative and qualitative information companies report about their IP assets makes it difficult for shareholders and other stakeholders to assess directors' stewardship of those assets - a pressing corporate governance issue in the 21st century. This book advances IP reporting in alignment with the key corporate governance principles of transparency and disclosure. It analyses the juncture between the IP ecosystem; corporate finance and accounting for intangibles; and corporate governance. Patents, mini-case studies and an original business triage style model for assessing IP disclosures are used to illustrate the gaps corporate governance theory needs to address. Focussing on the common law tradition of corporate governance in England and Wales, intangibles and IP reporting developments in other jurisdictions are also explored.

Technical standards are ubiquitous in the modern networked economy. They allow products made and sold by different vendors to interoperate with little to no consumer effort and enable new market entrants to innovate on top of established technology platforms. This groundbreaking volume, edited by Jorge L. Contreras, assesses and analyzes the legal aspects of technical standards and standardization. Bringing together more than thirty leading international scholars, advocates, and policymakers, it focuses on two of the most contentious and critical areas pertaining to standards today in key jurisdictions around the world: antitrust/competition law and patent law. (A subsequent volume will focus on international trade, copyright, and administrative law.) This comprehensive, detailed examination sheds new light on the standards that shape the global technology marketplace and will serve as an indispensable tool for scholars, practitioners, judges, and policymakers everywhere.

With the rise of internet marketing and e-commerce around the world, international and cross-border conflicts in trademark and unfair competition law have become increasingly important. In this groundbreaking work, Tim Dornis - who, in addition to his scholarly pursuits, has worked as an attorney, a public prosecutor, and a judge, giving him experience in both civil and common-law jurisdictions - presents the historical-comparative, doctrinal, and economic aspects of trademark and unfair competition conflicts law. The book should be read by any scholar or practitioner interested in the international aspects of intellectual property generally, and trademark and unfair competition law specifically. This title is available as Open Access.