This book draws on a wide selection of interdisciplinary literature discussing complex adaptive systems - including scholarship from economics, political science, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and religion - to apply general complexity tenets to the institutions, conceptual framework, and theoretical justifications of the copyright system, both in the United States and internationally. The author argues that copyrighted works are the products of complex creative systems and, consequently, designers of copyright regimes for the global 'information ecosystem' should look to complexity theory for guidance. Urging legal scholars to undertake empirical studies of real-world copyright systems, Tussey reveals how the selection of workable configurations for the copyright regime is larger than that encompassed by the traditional, entirely theoretical, debate between private property rights and the commons. Finally, this unique study articulates how copyright law must tolerate certain chaotic elements that may be essential to the sustainability of complex systems.

Celebrities can sell anything from cars to clothing, and we are constantly fascinated by their influence over our lifestyle choices. This book makes an important contribution to legal scholarship about the laws governing the commercial appropriation of fame. Exploring the right of publicity in the US and the passing off action in the UK and Australia, David Tan demonstrates how an appreciation of the production, circulation and consumption of fame can be incorporated into a pragmatic framework to further the understanding of the laws protecting the commercial value of the celebrity personality. Using contemporary examples such as social media and appropriation art, Tan shows how present challenges for the law may be addressed using this cultural framework. This book will be of interest to intellectual property law academics, judges, practitioners and students in the US and common law jurisdictions, as well as those in the field of cultural studies.

Darrell A. Posey, who died in 2001, was internationally known for his support of indigenous peoples and their natural habitats, and particularly for his pioneering work with the Kayapo people of Brazil. He was an organiser of the First International Congress of Ethnobiology which resulted in the Declaration of Belem: the first instance of an international scientific organisation recognizing an obligation to compensate native peoples for use of their knowledge and biological resources. In 1993, Posey received the United Nations Global 500 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Service to the Environment. Indigenous Knowledge and Ethics presents seventeen of his articles on the topics of environment, indigenous knowledge and intellectual property rights. Demonstrating his belief in the validity of indigenous knowledge systems, and his insistence that indigenous rights must be recognised and protected, it is an ideal introduction to his thought and work.

A wide range of crop genetic resources is vital for future food security. Loss of agricultural biodiversity increases the risk of relying on a limited number of staple food crops. However, many laws, such as seed laws, plant varieties protection and access and benefit-sharing laws, have direct impacts on agrobiodiversity, and their effects have been severely underestimated by policy makers. This is of concern not only to lawyers, but also to agronomists, biologists and social scientists, who need clear guidance as to the relevance of the law to their work.

Agrobiodiversity and the Law analyzes the impact of the legal system on agrobiodiversity (or agricultural biodiversity) the diversity of agricultural species, varieties and ecosystems. Using an interdisciplinary approach, it takes up the emerging concept of agrobiodiversity and its relationship with food security, nutrition, health, environmental sustainability and climate change. It assesses the impacts on agrobiodiversity of key legal instruments, including Seeds Laws, International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, Plant Breeders' Rights, Convention on Biological Diversity (regarding specifically its impact on agrobiodiversity), and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. It also reviews the options for the implementation of these instruments at the national level in several countries. It discusses the interfaces between the free software movement, the 'commons' movement and seeds, as well as the legal instruments to protect cultural heritage and their application to safeguard agrobiodiversity-rich systems. Finally, it analyzes the role of protected areas and the possibility of using geographical indications to enhance the value of agrobiodiversity products and processes.

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

This book provides the reader with a critical insight into the history and theory of copyright within contemporary legal and cultural discourse. It exposes as myth the orthodox history of the development of copyright law in eighteenth-century Britain and explores the way in which that myth became entrenched throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To this historical analysis are added two theoretical approaches to copyright not otherwise found in mainstream contemporary texts. Rethinking Copyright introduces the reader to copyright through the prism of the public domain before turning to the question as to how best to locate copyright within the parameters of traditional property discourse. Moreover, underpinning these various historical and theoretical strands, the book explores the constitutive power of legal writing and the place of rhetoric in framing and determining contemporary copyright policy and discourse. Ronan Deazley's book will be of interest to academics and practitioners of law and intellectual property. The work should also be of interest to those working in alternate disciplines such as literary and cultural theorists and bibliographers

As long as there have been fans, there has been fan fiction. There seems to be a fundamental human need to tell additional stories about the characters after the book, series, play or movie is over. But developments in information technology and copyright law have put these fan stories at risk of collision with the content owners' intellectual property rights. Fan fiction has long been a nearly invisible form of outsider art, but over the past decade it has grown exponentially in volume and in legal importance. Because of its nature, authorship, and underground status, fan fiction stands at an intersection of key issues regarding property, sexuality, and gender. In Fan Fiction and Copyright, author Aaron Schwabach examines various types of fan-created content and asks whether and to what extent they are protected from liability for copyright infringement. Professor Schwabach discusses examples of original and fan works from a wide range of media, genres, and cultures. From Sherlock Holmes to Harry Potter, fictional characters, their authors, and their fans are sympathetically yet realistically assessed. Fan Fiction and Copyright looks closely at examples of three categories of disputes between authors and their fans: Disputes over the fans' use of copyrighted characters, disputes over online publication of fiction resembling copyright work, and in the case of J.K. Rowling and a fansite webmaster, a dispute over the compiling of a reference work detailing an author's fictional universe. Offering more thorough coverage of many such controversies than has ever been available elsewhere, and discussing fan works from the United States, Brazil, China, India, Russia, and elsewhere, Fan Fiction and Copyright advances the understanding of fan fiction as transformative use and points the way toward a safe harbor for fan fiction.

Although EU Member States share a tradition of regulating public broadcasting for the public interest, such regulation has been in decline in recent years. It has been challenged by the emergence of commercial television sworn to the market logic, as well as by satellite services and the Internet. EU law and policy has, under pressure from powerful global forces, abetted that decline. The question thus arises: Do cultural values still matter in European national broadcasting? This important book examines the challenges posed to public service obligations by European Union media law and policy. An in-depth analysis of the extent to which six countries (France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) regulate broadcasting for the public interest reveals a range of vulnerability to national political pressures or, alternatively, to the ideology of market sovereignty.The author examines the country of origin principle and the European quota rule of the Television without Frontiers Directive, revealing the influence of European law on the definition and enforcement of programme requirements, and shows how the case law of the European Court of Justice encourages deregulation at the national level without offering adequate safeguards at the supranational level in exchange. She asks the question whether the alleged European audiovisual model actually persists; that is, whether broadcasting is still committed to protecting such values as cultural diversity, the safety of minors, the susceptibility of consumers to advertising, media pluralism, and the fight against racial and religious hatred.The book concludes with an evaluation of the impact of the EU state aid regime on the licence fee based financing of public broadcasting. Despite the increasing importance of the subject, its study in a comparative context has been heretofore underdeveloped. This book fully provides that context and more, and will be of great value and interest to all parties concerned with the key role of communications in the development of European integration.

One of the common themes in recent public debate has been the law's inability to accommodate the new ways of creating, distributing and replicating intellectual products. In this book the authors argue that in order to understand many of the problems currently confronting the law, it is necessary to understand its past. This is its first detailed historical account. In this book the authors explore two related themes. First, they explain why intellectual property law came to take its now familiar shape with sub-categories of patents, copyright, designs and trade marks. Secondly, the authors set out to explain how it is that the law grants property status to intangibles. In doing so they explore the rise and fall of creativity as an organising concept in intellectual property law, the mimetic nature of intellectual property law and the important role that the registration process plays in shaping intangible property.

In a rapidly changing world, the underlying philosophies, the rationale and the appropriateness of patent law have come under question. In this insightful collection, the authors undertake a careful examination of existing patent systems and their prospects for the future. Scholars and practitioners from Japan, the US, Europe, India, Brazil and China give detailed analyses of current and likely future problems with their respective systems, and outline possible responses to them.With detailed and extensive contributions, this book will greatly appeal to students, practitioners, policymakers and academics who are interested in the problems of current patent system in the world and their future. Contents: T.G. Agitha, G. Carmichael, S. Elahi, Y. Futoshi, N.S. Gopalakrishanan, K. Karachalios, J.P. Kesan, M.A. Lemley, C. McGinley, K. Motohashi, N. Nakayama, C. Neppel, Y. Omori, Z. Ping, B. Rutz, R. Shimanami, V. Yumy Mitsuuchi-Kunisawa

In this book Konstantinos Komaitis identifies a tripartite problem - intellectual, institutional and ethical - inherent in the domain name regulation culture. Using the theory of property, Komaitis discusses domain names as sui generis 'e-property' rights and analyses the experience of the past ten years, through the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). The institutional deficit he identifies, generates a further discussion on the ethical dimensions in the regulation of domain names and prompts Komaitis to suggest the creation of an environment based on justice.

The relationship between trademarks and domain names has always been contentious and the existing institutions of the UDRP and ACPA have not assisted in alleviating the tension between the two identifiers. Over the past ten years, the trademark community has been systematic in encouraging and promoting a culture that indiscriminately considers domain names as secondclass citizens, suggesting that trademark rights should have priority over the registration in the domain name space.

Komaitis disputes this assertion and brings to light the injustices and the trademark-oriented nature of the UDRP and ACPA. He queries what the appropriate legal source to protect registrants when not seeking to promote trademark interests is. He also delineates a legal hypothesis on their nature as well as the steps of their institutionalisation process that we need to reverse, seeking to create a just framework for the regulation of domain names. Finally he explores how the current policies contribute to the philosophy of domain names as second-class citizens.

With these questions in mind, Komaitis suggests some recommendations concerning the reconfiguration of the regulation of domain names.

This book critically reviews the recurrent debate on Intellectual Property law and policy in developing countries carried out in the last decade. It identifies the still unresolved policy issues and proposes alternative approaches that resonate with the needs for transformation of the economic and social reality of developing countries. Focusing on emerging economies in Asia, the work draws the wider lessons to be learnt by researchers, policy makers, legislators and the business sector in general and concludes by putting forward proposals for reform.

This book considers the issue of biodiversity in developing countries in relation to intellectual-property rights, community rights and human rights. Drawing together a number of case studies of developing countries rich in biological and genetic resources including India, South Africa and Brazil, the book examines the access to PGRs and their utilizations in the contexts of scientific and commercial oriented activities pursued both in the source and user countries. Exploring how community rights are protected in national biodiversity-related regulations and some international legal instruments, Marcelin Tonye Mahop also discusses the relationship between community rights and human rights in the context of biodiversity. The book looks at the issue of bio-piracy, asking whether this phenomenon should only be seen as a North South clash, whereby biodiversity rich countries of the Southern Hemisphere blame developed countries and their actors as its principal perpetrators. While recognizing that developing countries' actors play a role in this bio-piracy phenomenon, the book goes on to suggest alternative measures for the legal protection of community rights at the national level with the possibility of national and international enforceability.

Essential reading for students and scholars of intellectual-property rights, biodiversity regulations and human rights, this book will also be of great value to researchers and members of professional organizations working in these subject areas. National and regional negotiators in the international processes dealing with the issues covered in the book will find it a useful tool that can help them to understand various facets of these processes.

This topical book critically examines the regulatory framework for generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) on the Internet. The regulation drawn up by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) applies at a global level, complementing national and international law. These rules form part of a growing body of transnational private regulation. Generic Top-Level Domains offers a clear and engaging analysis of how ICANN has tackled a diverse set of regulatory issues related to the introduction of new gTLDs, such as property rights, competition and consumer protection. Studying recent case law, the book argues for a stronger focus on procedural fairness for future introductions of new gTLDs. It also highlights how ICANN's contractual framework regulates the registration and use of domain names and argues that ICANN's regulatory authority ought to be clarified in order to avoid regulatory overreach. Uniquely comprehensive, this book will appeal to students and scholars with an interest in Internet governance, domain name law and transnational private regulation. Practitioners working in the domain name industry will also find this a valuable resource.

An understanding of the changing nature of the law and practice of copyright infringement is a task too big for lawyers alone; it requires additional inputs from economists, historians, technologists, sociologists, cultural theorists and criminologists. Where is the boundary to be drawn between illegal imitation and legal inspiration? Would the answer be different for creators, artists and experts from different disciplines or fields? How have concepts of copyright infringement altered over time and how do such changes relate, if at all, to the cultural norms operating amongst creators in different fields? With such an approach, one might perhaps begin to address the vital and overarching question of whether strong copyright laws, rigorously enforced, impede rather than promote creativity. And what can be done to avoid any such adverse consequences, while maintaining the effectiveness of copyright as an incentive-mechanism for those who need it?

Copyright laws, along with other Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), constitute the legal foundation for the "global knowledge-based economy" and copyright law now plays an increasingly important role in the creation of business fortunes, the access to and dissemination of knowledge, and human development in general. This book examines major problems in the current IPR regime, particularly the copyright regime, in the context of digitization, knowledge economy, and globalization. The book contends that the final goals of IP law and policy-making are to enhance the progress of science and economic development, and the use and even-distribution of intellectual resource at the global level. By referring to major international IP consensus, recent developments in regional IP forums and the successful experiences of various countries, YiJun Tian is able to provide specific theoretical, policy and legislative suggestions for addressing current copyright challenges. The book contends that each nation should strengthen the coordination of its IP protection and development strategies, adopt a more systematic and heterogeneous approach, and make IP theory, policy, specific legal mechanisms, marketing forces and all other available measures work collectively to deal with digital challenges and in a way that contributes to the establishment of a knowledge equilibrium international society.

The average cost of an uncomplicated patent application filing is about $10,000. This high cost can leave thousands of inventors out in the cold. Filing Patents Online: A Professional Guide is a complete manual that walks inventors through each step of filing and prosecuting the patent online at a fraction of the cost. The online filing system recommended in the book allows continuous monitoring of the review status and for a much faster approval than the traditional route. Drawing from the many years of the author's experience as both an inventor and a patent agent, this guide teaches the methods of research, planning, and the art of writing winning claims that will result in commercially valuable patents.

In recent years we have witnessed a rising tension between the open architecture of the Internet and legal restrictions for online activities. The impact of digital recording technologies and distributed file sharing systems has forever changed the expectations of everyday users with regard to digital information. At the same time, however, U.S. Copyright Law has shown a decided trend toward more restrictions over what we are able to do with digital materials. As a result, a gap has emerged between the reality of copyright law and the social reality of our everyday activities. Through an analysis of the competing rhetorical frameworks about copyright regulation in a digital age, this book shows how the stories told by active parties in the debate shape our cultural understanding of what is and is not acceptable in the use of copyrighted works on digital networks. Reyman posits recent legal developments as sites of conflict between competing value systems in our culture: one of control, relying heavily on comparisons of intellectual property to physical property, and emphasizing ownership, theft, and piracy, and the other a value of community, implementing new concepts such as that of an intellectual "commons," and emphasizing exchange, collaboration, and responsibility to a public good. Reyman argues that the rhetoric of the digital copyright debate, namely the rhetorical positioning of technology as destructive to creative and intellectual production, has profound implications for the future of digital culture.

First published in 1991, this volume aims to take a close look at the laws of 27 countries to locate what others value in the realm of legal deposit and heighten our awareness of its importance for free access to information. It responds to the great concern over the freedom of the press, the end of censorship and absolute government secrecy, and guaranteed public access to information. The term 'legal deposit', known in the UK and several former-British Empire countries as 'copyright deposit', originated in France in 1537 and has spread throughout the world, though the definition of the term remains questionable. Jan T. Jasion examines this through three parts: various aspects of legal deposit, comparing legal deposit worldwide and a detailed examination of the laws of 27 countries to compare the various national interpretations of legal deposit.

This authoritative book provides a comprehensive critical overview of the basic IP paradigms, such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. Their intersection with competition law and their impacts on the exercise of social welfare are analysed from an evolutionary perspective.The analyses and proposals presented encompass the features and rationales of a legal field in constant evolution, and relate them to increasingly rapid technological, economic, social and geo-political developments. Gustavo Ghidini highlights the emerging trends that challenge the traditional a??all-exclusionarya?? vision of IP law and its application. The author expertly combines holistic, evolutionary and constitutionally oriented approaches, with the search for a rebalancing of the IP rights holdersa?? positions with citizensa?? and usersa?? rights.This book will appeal to academics, scholars and lawyers specializing in the realm of intellectual property, competition and comparative law.

The first edition established itself as one of the leading books to situate the issue of intellectual property within the discipline of International Political Economy (IPE). Since its publication, intellectual property has continued to rise up the global agenda, reflecting expanding interest in the area among policy-makers and advocacy groups, linked to the increasingly fraught politics of the global governance of IPRs.

Significantly revised and updated to take account of developments within the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization, this edition incorporates the author 's recent research on IPRs. It retains the theoretical and analytical elements of the first edition, whilst offering students and researchers a detailed analysis of how intellectual property is politically constructed, and how it is linked to the economics of knowledge and information in the contemporary global political economy. Rapidly-developing issues addressed in the work include:

• arguments around the implementation of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of IPRs (TRIPs)
• the WIPO Development agenda and the resistance to socialization programmes
• the AIDS crisis and the pharmaceutical industry
• Digital Rights Management

This book will be of interest to students and researchers of international political economy, international relations and intellectual property law.

The first edition established itself as one of the leading books to situate the issue of intellectual property within the discipline of International Political Economy (IPE). Since its publication, intellectual property has continued to rise up the global agenda, reflecting expanding interest in the area among policy-makers and advocacy groups, linked to the increasingly fraught politics of the global governance of IPRs. Significantly revised and updated to take account of developments within the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization, this edition incorporates the author's recent research on IPRs. It retains the theoretical and analytical elements of the first edition, whilst offering students and researchers a detailed analysis of how intellectual property is politically constructed, and how it is linked to the economics of knowledge and information in the contemporary global political economy. Rapidly-developing issues addressed in the work include: arguments around the implementation of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of IPRs (TRIPs) the WIPO Development agenda and the 'resistance' to socialization programmes the AIDS crisis and the pharmaceutical industry Digital Rights Management This book will be of interest to students and researchers of international political economy, international relations and intellectual property law.

This Research Handbook provides a scholarly and comprehensive account of the multiple converging challenges that digital technologies present for intellectual property (IP) rights, from the perspectives of international, EU and US law. Despite the fast-moving nature of digital technology, this Handbook provides profound reflections on the underlying normative legal dilemmas, identifying future problems and suggesting how digital IP issues should be dealt with in the future. Written by leading international academics, commentators and practitioners, the Handbook is organised into clear thematic parts that address the most prominent types of IP rights: copyrights and related rights; patents and trade secrets; and trade mark law and designs. Chapters analyse a range of key technologies and their impacts within these areas, including big data, artificial intelligence, streaming, software, databases, user-generated content, mass digitisation, metatags, keywords and 3D printing. The Handbook concludes by exploring issues of competition and enforcement that cut across all of these technologies, particularly in the light of online exploitation and infringement. Scholars and doctoral students of law will find this Handbook an invaluable introduction and guide to the field of digital IP. Practitioners will also find its thoughtful coverage practically relevant. Contributors include: R. Abbott, B. Allgrove, R. Arnold, R. Burrell, T. Cook, M. Davison, M. Fisher, S. Ghosh, J. Ginsburg, J. Groom, M. Handler, Y. Harn Lee, T.R. Holbrook, M. Iljadica, S. Karapapa, I. Lee, J. Lipton, D. Llewelyn, M.F. Makeen, M.P. McKenna, D. Mendis, F. Mostert, L.S. Osborn, T.P. Reddy, E. Rosati, S.K. Sandeen, M. Senftleben, N. Shemtov, A. Strowel, T.E. Synodinou, K. Weatherall

This book examines the development of national legislative regimes for the protection of intellectual property rights in the Arabian Gulf states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. David Price analyses IP rights in these states in the context of WTO membership, and consequent compliance with the requirements of the WTO 's TRIPS Agreement. The challenges of domestic enforcement of the states IP laws receive critical attention.

A particular focus of the book is on foreign forces which have shaped or influenced the character of the states IP protection regimes. It includes commentary on the contribution of foreign states, the WTO and WIPO in the pre-TRIPS and TRIPS compliance stages, and the US bilateral trade strategy for pursuing IP protection standards that exceed those enshrined in TRIPS, and the impact of these forces upon the states enforcement performance. The role of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and the Special 301 provisions as a powerful tool in the US bilateral strategy receives particular attention.

The intellectual property laws of these states have been developed virtually in the span of a single generation, and the process of change is continuing. As such, this book will interest practitioners both in and outside of the region, and those with an interest in intellectual property law, comparative law, Middle East legal systems and affairs, and international trade.