This research review discusses themes that arise at the points at which employment and intellectual property laws converge. Topics include historical perspectives on employee inventions; rationales for default rules; allocation of ownership of employee creation; restraints and employee mobility and discusses university approaches and issues.

Exploring obstacles to effective compensation of victims of competition infringements, this book categorises the types of victims harmed and the types of losses arisen from these infringements to identify to what extent there is a need for enhanced private competition law enforcement in the European Union (EU) and the best way to address this need. It shows that there is a genuine need for facilitating consumer damages actions and that consumer claims are the only claims that can be pursued in a collective redress action. In order to compensate consumers and overcome barriers to effective enforcement of their right to damages, it structures a collective redress action for consumers by considering the following elements: i. the formation of the group, ii. the type of representative party iii. funding mechanisms and iv. calculation and distribution of damages.

In our digital world, data is power. Information hoarding businesses reign supreme, using intimidation, aggression, and force to maintain influence and control. Sarah Lamdan brings us into the unregulated underworld of these "data cartels", demonstrating how the entities mining, commodifying, and selling our data and informational resources perpetuate social inequalities and threaten the democratic sharing of knowledge. Just a few companies dominate most of our critical informational resources. Often self-identifying as "data analytics" or "business solutions" operations, they supply the digital lifeblood that flows through the circulatory system of the internet. With their control over data, they can prevent the free flow of information, masterfully exploiting outdated information and privacy laws and curating online information in a way that amplifies digital racism and targets marginalized communities. They can also distribute private information to predatory entities. Alarmingly, everything they're doing is perfectly legal. In this book, Lamdan contends that privatization and tech exceptionalism have prevented us from creating effective legal regulation. This in turn has allowed oversized information oligopolies to coalesce. In addition to specific legal and market-based solutions, Lamdan calls for treating information like a public good and creating digital infrastructure that supports our democratic ideals.

Defamation and privacy are now two central issues in media law. While defamation law has long posed concerns for media publications, the emergence of privacy as a legal challenge has been relatively recent in many common law jurisdictions outside the US. A number of jurisdictions have seen recent defamation and privacy law reforms, which have often drawn on, or reacted against, developments elsewhere. This timely book examines topical issues in defamation and privacy law focused on media, journalism and contemporary communication. Aimed at a wide legal audience, it brings together leading and emerging analysts of media law to address current and proposed reforms and the impact of changes in communication environments, and to re-examine basic principles such as harm and free speech. This book will be of interest to all those working on commonwealth or US law, as well as comparative scholars from wider jurisdictions.

When data from all aspects of our lives can be relevant to our health - from our habits at the grocery store and our Google searches to our FitBit data and our medical records - can we really differentiate between big data and health big data? Will health big data be used for good, such as to improve drug safety, or ill, as in insurance discrimination? Will it disrupt health care (and the health care system) as we know it? Will it be possible to protect our health privacy? What barriers will there be to collecting and utilizing health big data? What role should law play, and what ethical concerns may arise? This timely, groundbreaking volume explores these questions and more from a variety of perspectives, examining how law promotes or discourages the use of big data in the health care sphere, and also what we can learn from other sectors.

The book examines the correlation between Intellectual Property Law - notably copyright - on the one hand and social and economic development on the other. The main focus of the initial overview is on historical, legal, economic and cultural aspects. Building on that, the work subsequently investigates how intellectual property systems have to be designed in order to foster social and economic growth in developing countries and puts forward theoretical and practical solutions that should be considered and implemented by policy makers, legal experts and the Word Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

This book discusses the main legal and economic challenges to the creation and enforcement of security rights in intellectual property and explores possible avenues of reform, such as more specific rules for security in IP rights and better coordination between intellectual property law and secured transactions law. In the context of business financing, intellectual property rights are still only reluctantly used as collateral, and on a small scale. If they are used at all, it is mostly done in the form of a floating charge or some other "all-asset" security right. The only sector in which security rights in intellectual property play a major role, at least in some jurisdictions, is the financing of movies. On the other hand, it is virtually undisputed that security rights in intellectual property could be economically valuable, or even crucial, for small and medium-sized enterprises - especially for start-ups, which are often very innovative and creative, but have limited access to corporate financing and must rely on capital markets (securitization, capital market). Therefore, they need to secure bank loans, yet lack their own traditional collateral, such as land.

This research review examines the many facets of the public domain. It discusses key papers, whose topic is the various justifications for a rich repository of publicly-avaliable information, including policies favouring robust competition, free speech, and scientific and technological advance. It also explores problems in ensuring access to public domain works, as well as commons management mechanisms. Perspectives on the dynamic between the public domain and the creation of new works are also presented. This research review is an insightful resource for students and researchers with a consideration of the public domain as an important topic in its own right as well as shedding light on the underlying rationales of intellectual property law.

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.

Traditional knowledge protection methods are becoming increasingly out-dated in the face of modern challenges. Focussing on the protection of traditional knowledge and related genetic resources, this book is the first of its kind to amalgamate a novel theoretical framework with the practical applications of the combined theories of Rawls and Coase. The Protection of Traditional Knowledge on Genetic Resources analyzes various means of protection for traditional knowledge that cohere with Rawls? and Coase?s specific objectives regarding fairness and efficiency. It utilizes flexibilities provided by binding international conventions in the field in order to propose alternative methods to protect different forms of traditional knowledge. Frantzeska Papadopoulou reaches the conclusion that property, liability and reward systems are forms of protection that fulfill the fairness and efficiency criteria whilst remaining compliant with the general international legal framework. This book is ideal for international property law and development academics and policy makers, especially those working on international property rights (IPRs), as it proposes a novel methodological framework for the evaluation of IPRs.

This book offers empirical analyses of conflicts over the ownership, control, and use of knowledge and information in developed and developing countries. Sebastian Haunss and Kenneth C. Shadlen, along with a collection of eminent contributors, focus on how business organizations, farmers, social movements, legal communities, state officials, transnational enterprises, and international organizations shape IP policies in areas such as health, information-communication technologies, indigenous knowledge, genetic resources, and many others. The innovative and original chapters examine conflicts over the rules governing various dimensions of IP, including patents, copyrights, traditional knowledge, and biosafety regulations. Written from a political perspective, this book is a must-read for political scientists, sociologists and anthropologists who study IP and conflicts over property. It is also an essential read for stakeholders in institutions, NGOs and industry interested in knowledge governance and IP politics.

Governing Medical Knowledge Commons makes three claims: first, evidence matters to innovation policymaking; second, evidence shows that self-governing knowledge commons support effective innovation without prioritizing traditional intellectual property rights; and third, knowledge commons can succeed in the critical fields of medicine and health. The editors' knowledge commons framework adapts Elinor Ostrom's groundbreaking research on natural resource commons to the distinctive attributes of knowledge and information, providing a systematic means for accumulating evidence about how knowledge commons succeed. The editors' previous volume, Governing Knowledge Commons, demonstrated the framework's power through case studies in a diverse range of areas. Governing Medical Knowledge Commons provides fifteen new case studies of knowledge commons in which researchers, medical professionals, and patients generate, improve, and share innovations, offering readers a practical introduction to the knowledge commons framework and a synthesis of conclusions and lessons. The book is also available as Open Access.

The economic torts for too long have been under-theorized and under-explored by academics and the judiciary alike. In recent years claimants have exploited the resulting chaos by attempting to use the economic torts in ever more exotic ways. This second edition of An Analysis of Econmic Torts, as before, attempts to provide practical legal research to both explore the ingredients of all these torts - both the general economic torts (inducing breach of contract, the unlawful means tort, intimidation, the conspiracy torts) and the misrepresentation economic torts (deceit, malicious falsehood and passing off) - and their rationales. And, as before, an optimum framework for these torts is suggested.
However that framework has to take on board the apparent tension within the House of Lords as revealed in the recent decisions in OBG v Allan and Total Network v Revenue. Over 100 years ago the House of Lords in the seminal decision of Allen v Flood in theory set the agenda for the modern development of the economic torts. The majority in that case adopted an abstentionist approach to liability for intentionally inflicted economic harm, so that even where intentional and unjustified economic harm was inflicted, liability would not necessarily follow. However, this clear framework for the torts was obscured by subsequent case law, leaving the economic torts in a hopeless muddle by the start of the twenty-first century. A chance to finally sort out this mess was presented to the House of Lords in 2007 in the shape of three conjoined appeals, reported under the name OBG v Allan. The thrust of the judgments was that a framework for the economic torts was to be established and dicta and decisions that caused problems and incoherence were to be named and shamed. Re-affirming the abstentionist philosophy of Allen v Flood Lord Hoffmann and Nicholls and Baroness Hale in part relied upon the first edition of An Analysis of the Economic Torts, Lord Hoffmann noting ..". if what I have said does anything to clarify what has been described as an extremely obscure branch of the law, much is owing to Hazel Carty's book An Analysis of the Economic Torts ." However, within 10 months of the OBG decision, a differently constituted HL in Total Network SL v Revenue & Customs Commissioners undermined this nascent coherence and did so by focusing on the conspiracy torts (previously dismissed by some commentators as anomalous or superfluous). Distinguishing OBG (which did not as such analyse the conspiracy torts) the House of Lords in Total Network may have shifted the general economic torts from the abstentionist to the interventionist track of development.
Thus it is suggested that conflicting agendas for general economic liability can be discerned in the OBG and Total Network judgments. These agendas are debated (against the background of the growing academic debate) and a coherent approach suggested. As for the misrepresentation torts their potential for development is also discussed and the peril of allowing them to transform into unfair trading or misappropriation torts is explained. As a result, the second edition involves a substantial re-write of the first edition. However, the thesis of the author remains that a coherent framework for these torts can best be constructed based on a narrow remit for the common law.

Perspectives on Patentable Subject Matter brings together leading scholars to offer diverse perspectives on the question of which types of subject matter are even eligible for patent protection, setting aside the widely known requirement that a claimed invention avoid the prior art and be adequately disclosed. Some leading commentators and policy-making bodies and individuals envision patentable subject matter to include anything under the sun made by humans, others envision a range of restrictions for particular fields of endeavor, from business methods and computer software to matters involving life, such as DNA and methods for screening or treating disease. Employing approaches that are both theoretically rigorous and grounded in the real world, this book is well suited for practicing lawyers, managers, lawmakers and analysts, as well as academics researching or teaching in law schools, business schools, public policy schools, and in economics and political science departments.

When first written into the Constitution, intellectual property aimed to facilitate "progress of science and the useful arts" by granting rights to authors and inventors. Today, when rapid technological evolution accompanies growing wealth inequality and political and social divisiveness, the constitutional goal of "progress" may pertain to more basic, human values, redirecting IP's emphasis to the commonweal instead of private interests. Against Progress considers contemporary debates about intellectual property law as concerning the relationship between the constitutional mandate of progress and fundamental values, such as equality, privacy, and distributive justice, that are increasingly challenged in today's internet age. Following a legal analysis of various intellectual property court cases, Jessica Silbey examines the experiences of everyday creators and innovators navigating ownership, sharing, and sustainability within the internet eco-system and current IP laws. Crucially, the book encourages refiguring the substance of "progress" and the function of intellectual property in terms that demonstrate the urgency of art and science to social justice today.

This assembly of writings by scholars, lawyers, and judges on the law and policy of trademarks and unfair competition presents a rich offering that ranges across time, place, and perspective. The challenge of revealing the subject s full scope to the interested tyro and yet making experts wonder how they had somehow overlooked this or that critical article is fully met. Professors Dinwoodie and Janis and their publisher deserve thanks for bringing this treasure trove within reach of all with an interest in why and how brands are regulated.' - David Vaver, Osgoode Hall Law School, Canada and University of Oxford, UKThis comprehensive two-volume collection of leading articles in trademark and unfair competition law spans almost a century and three continents, bringing together the most influential and significant scholarly work in this exciting field. These essential volumes, with a new and original introduction by two leading contemporary writers, are organized in a way that highlights essential concepts and will be invaluable both for those taking their first steps in the area and for those seeking to re-acquaint themselves with the classics. 44 articles, dating from 1925 to 2010 Contributors include: B. Beebe, L. Bently, R.S. Brown Jr., W. Cornish, R. Dreyfuss, A. Kur, J. Litman, R. Posner, F. Schechter

With respect to intellectual property regimes, a significant change in international governance rules is mandated by the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).This topical volume deals with the processes through which TRIPS compliance was achieved in four developing country jurisdictions: Brazil, China, India and Thailand. More importantly, it analyses the macro and micro implications of TRIPS compliance for innovative activity in industry in general, but focuses specifically on the agrochemical, automotive and pharmaceutical sectors. This unique volume will appeal to a wide range of scholars working on development, evolutionary economics and technology. Contributors: T. Caliari, P. Charoenporn, S. Chaudhuri, S. Hong, P. Intarakumnerd, S. Mani, R. Mazzoleni, L. Nagarajan, R.R. Nelson, L. Martins Costa Povoa, C. Pray, V.K. Unni

This book examines the development of the Spanish patent system in the years 1826 to 1902, providing a fundamental reassessment of its evolution in an international context. The Spanish case is particularly interesting because of this country's location on the so-called European periphery and also because of the centrality of its colonial dimension. Pretel gauges the political regulation and organisation of the system, showing how it was established and how it evolved following international patterns of technological globalisation and the emergence of the 'international patent system' during the late nineteenth century. Crucially, he highlights the construction and evolution of the patent system in response to the needs of Spain's technologically dependent economy. The degree of industrial backwardness in mid-nineteenth-century Spain set the stage for the institutionalisation of its modern patent system. This institutionalisation process also entailed the introduction of a new technological culture, social infrastructure and narrative that supported intellectual property rights. This book is important reading to all those interested in the history of patents and their role in globalisation.

This collection comprises eighteen contemporary articles on an often overlooked, but important, field of intellectual property law: trade secrets and undisclosed information. Divided into five parts, the selected articles examine various aspects of trade secret law, including its historical development and the range of theories and justifications for trade secret protection. The material also provides a detailed exploration of the scope and limits of trade secret protection, and addresses how trade secret issues arise in a number of contexts, including employment, governmental relations, and the internet. Including an original introduction by the editors, Trade Secrets and Undisclosed Information brings this significant subject into the forefront of discussion, and will be an invaluable resource to students, scholars and practitioners alike.

This timely Handbook marks a major shift in innovation studies, moving the focus of attention from the standard intellectual property regimes of copyright, patent, and trademark, to an exploration of trade secrecy and the laws governing know-how, tacit knowledge, and confidential relationships. The editors introduce the long tradition of trade secrecy protection and its emerging importance as a focus of scholarly inquiry. The book then presents theoretical, doctrinal, and comparative considerations of the foundations of trade secrecy, before moving on to study the impact of trade secrecy regimes on innovation and on other social values. Coverage includes topics such as sharing norms, expressive interests, culture, politics, competition, health, and the environment. This important Handbook offers the first modern exploration of trade secrecy law and will strongly appeal to intellectual property academics, and to students and lawyers practicing in the intellectual property area. Professors in competition law, constitutional law and environmental law will also find much to interest them in this book, as will innovation theorists. Contributors include: R.G. Bone, C.M. Correa, R. Denicola, R.S. Eisenberg, V. Falce, H. First, J.C. Fromer, G. Ghidini, C.T. Graves, M.A. Lemley, D.S. Levine, D.E. Long, M.L. Lyndon, M.J. Madison, F.A. Pasquale, J.H. Reichman, M. Risch, P. Samuelson, S.K. Sandeen, G. Van Overwalle, E. von Hippel, D.L. Zimmerman

Intellectual property issues in the film industry are often highly complex and in today's world are evolving rapidly. In this second edition of Film Copyright in the European Union, Pascal Kamina unravels the complexities of film protection in twenty-eight member states of the European Union, including thirteen new member states who have joined since the first edition. As well as addressing key aspects of film copyright, Pascal Kamina also deals with the protection of film works within the European Union in the context of European harmonisation of copyright laws. Including a new chapter on copyright enforcement, this second edition details the substantial developments in EU law during the last decade, including major cases for the European Court of Justice, new treaties and new directives. This book will interest practitioners, academics and students. The developments on contracts and moral rights will be of particular interest to lawyers outside continental Europe.

When is international patent law cooperation and harmonization welfare-enhancing? What is the role of international institutions - WIPO and the WTO - in furthering such harmonization? This book explores these questions from a global welfarist, rationalist perspective. It grounds its analysis in innovation theory and a examination of patent law and prosecution, incorporating the uncertainty of patent law's impact on welfare at a detailed level, dynamic changes, the skewed nature of patent value and the difficulty of textually capturing patent concepts. Using tools from new institutional economics, it explores future design implications for international institutions, analyzing grounds for international cooperation as collective action problems and applying historical, political and transaction cost analyses. Academics, students and practitioners interested in international economic law, specifically in respect of patents, innovation and intellectual property, the TRIPs Agreement, the WTO and WIPO will find this book essential. It will also prove insightful for researchers whose primary background is in international relations or international political economy, but are seeking an introduction to the patent and intellectual property field. Contents: Introduction Part I: Welfare-Enhancing Harmonization 1. Domestic Patent Law, Autarchic Analysis 2. The Value of Diversity: Relaxed Autarchy 3. Bases for Harmonization Part II: International Patent Law Institutions 4. History 5. International Patent Cooperation as Collective Action 6. Institutional Analysis: WIPO and the WTO Conclusions and Implications References

This book focuses on analysing how legal systems set the terms for interactions between human beings and plants. The story that the book recounts is one of experimental lawmaking in Ecuador, a country where over the past decade, governmental officials and civil society advocates have attempted to reconfigure how human individuals and institutions relate to nature, by following an "eco-centric" approach to lawmaking. In doing so, Ecuadorian legislators, administrators, and judges have taken seriously the ontologies of non-human entities, including plants, through a process that has required the continuous navigation of tensions with certain "logics" that pervade conventional legal regimes. The book endeavours to disrupt these conventional assumptions and approaches to lawmaking by taking seriously alternative strategies to reconstitute interactions between people and plants. In doing so, the book argues in favour of an "ecological turn" in laws that govern vegetal life. The analysis is based on a close examination of the experiences that lawmakers in Ecuador have had when experimenting with innovative approaches to re-form relationships between human and non-human beings. Concretely, these experiments have yielded constitutional, legislative, and regulatory changes that inform the inquiry of how intellectual property and plant genetic resources laws - both in Ecuador and worldwide - could become more "ecological" in nature. The argument that the book develops is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and empirical research in Ecuador, complemented by archival and doctrinal legal analysis. The contents of the book will be of interest to an academic audience of legal scholars and postgraduate students in law, in addition to scholars and students in the fields of anthropology, sociology, socio-legal studies, and science and technology studies.