This book provides a clear analysis of the multi-level impacts of the existing international law regime related to genetic resources on developing countries. It does so through a cogent exposition of the different areas of the law pertaining to genetic resources that are relevant and impact on people's rights and livelihoods. Its focus on equity is a welcome addition to the literature.' - Philippe Cullet, University of London, UK'Camena Guneratne's thought-provoking book critically evaluates the clash between the private property approach to genetic resources embedded in international intellectual property conventions, and the competing values embedded in a variety of other conventions and laws. She contests key assumptions behind intellectual property regimes supporting genetic commerce, distinguishing the genetic 'commons' from other types of resource. This book provides a comprehensive scholarly dealing with the topics noted in its title, but also should increase debate about policy failures in responding to the risks to the underprivileged of the instruments we use to pursue our economic interests of the majority.' - Paul Martin, University of New England, Australia 'This is a wonderful book. All to often in the quest to preserve biodiviersity, we forget that the equation of equity hs to be the forefront of the debates on sustainable development. Dr. Guneratne rectifies this mistake.This linkage between biodiversity, politics and international law is of such a high calibre, that it is likely that this work will become a key text for students and scholars alike.' - Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato, New Zealand This book examines current developments in international law which regulate the uses of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, and the various property regimes which are applied to these resources by these international agreements. In the current context of the global food crisis, the development and stability of national agricultural systems is an urgent concern, particularly among developing countries. This stability, and national food security, will potentially be threatened if these countries are unable to have free access to agricultural crop plants. This book analyses a range of international agreements including the recently adopted Nagoya Protocol and demonstrates that in their current implementation they favor private ownership of these resources rather than free access. The book takes the position that this is inherently inequitable and these resources should be maintained in the public domain. This book will be of use to a wide range of readers from students and scholars to those working in the fields of trade and intellectual property, human rights, environmental conservation and advocacy on international issues. It contains a rigorous legal analysis of current international law development on the issue based on the negotiations which have taken place in the relevant forums, and will therefore be particularly useful to lawyers and legal scholars. It is also written in an uncomplicated style which makes it readily accessible to non-lawyers and the case studies and empirical data used throughout the book adds to its interest.

This book inquires into the competence of the EU to legislate in the field of copyright, and uses content analysis techniques to demonstrate the existence of a normative gap in copyright lawmaking. To address that gap, it proposes the creation of benchmarks of legislative activity, reasoning that EU secondary legislation, such as directives and regulations, should be based on higher sources of law. It investigates two such possible sources: the activity of the EU Court of Justice in the pre-legislative era and the EU treaties. From these sources, the author establishes concrete benchmarks of legislative activity, which she then tests by applying them to current EU copyright legislation. This provides examples of good and bad practices in copyright lawmaking and also shows how the benchmarks could be implemented in copyright legislation. Finally, the author offers some recommendations in this regard.

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.

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.

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

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.

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).

Do you have a great idea for the next big thing, an eye-catching new corporate logo, or an exciting new business concept? Understand how to safeguard your ideas and creations with this expert guide to the fundamentals of intellectual property. Walking you step-by-step through the processes involved in protecting your great ideas, this book offers all the advice you need to ensure that you're the only one cashing in on your creativity and hard work.

The special issue of the "Comparative Law Yearbook of international Business deals with the very topical subject of e-commerce. This is an area that has seen an explosion of interest in recent years but, since the increase in the use of the Internet as a vehicle for conducting business transactions has been so rapid, the law has again fallen behind, particularly in the areas of regulation and jurisdiction. The situation is changing, however, with the introduction of both national and international legislation dealing with issues and relating to, "inter alia, data protection, privacy, electronic signatures, consumer protection and morality. The authors in this volume provide commetaries on the most recent developments in various jurisdictions, including the approach of the European Union to the problems raised by e-commerce. They discuss the difficulties in relation to jurisdiction arising from the global nature of Internet and the possibilities for dispute resolution between multi national parties to an electronic transaction. The topic is obviously one that will require much attention in the coming years and one which will need strict regulation if electronic commerce is destined to become the trading medium of the future.

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.

The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies comprises contemporary texts by key authors and artists who are active in the emerging field of remix studies. As an organic international movement, remix culture originated in the popular music culture of the 1970s, and has since grown into a rich cultural activity encompassing numerous forms of media. The act of recombining pre-existing material brings up pressing questions of authenticity, reception, authorship, copyright, and the techno-politics of media activism. This book approaches remix studies from various angles, including sections on history, aesthetics, ethics, politics, and practice, and presents theoretical chapters alongside case studies of remix projects. The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies is a valuable resource for both researchers and remix practitioners, as well as a teaching tool for instructors using remix practices in the classroom.

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.

This book employs scholarly analysis to ground practical tools for applying the EU Trade Mark law (EUTM) functionality refusal grounds to address business needs when registering trade marks consisting of product characteristics. The study comprehensively examines the absolute grounds for a refusal of registration of functional signs under EUTM. It interprets the functionality refusal grounds through objective tests, focusing on the pro-competition rationale of denying trade mark exclusivity on product features that are technically or aesthetically important for competitors’ ability to trade in alternative products. The work takes a comparative approach looking at the US trade dress functionality doctrine, and a law and economics perspective on the role of trade marks and brands in the marketplace. It explores how competition rules related to market definition and the substitutability of products, as well as marketing and design findings related to branding and aesthetics, could be integrated into the legal assessment of EUTM functionality. The volume will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of Intellectual Property Law, Trade Mark and Design Law, EU Law, Comparative Law, and Branding.

This wide-ranging Research Handbook is the first to offer a stimulating and systematic review of the framework for criminal enforcement of intellectual property rights. If counterfeiting constitutes an ever-growing international phenomenon with major economic and social repercussions, potentially affecting consumer safety and public health, the question of which are the appropriate instruments to enforce IP rights is a complex and sensitive one. Although criminal penalties can constitute strong and effective means of enforcement, serious doubts exist as to whether criminal sanctions are appropriate in every infringement situation. Drawing on legal, economic, historical and judicial perspectives, this book provides a differentiated sector-by-sector approach to the question of enforcement, and draws useful conclusions for future legislative initiatives at European, international and national levels. Offering a broad survey of the field, and a sound platform for further research, this legal and cross-disciplinary study by leading scholars will prove insightful for professors, researchers and students in intellectual property, criminal, competition, consumer protection and health law. Contributors: C.M. Correa, J. Drexl, C. Geiger, D. Gervais, J. Gibson, J. Griffiths, H. Grosse Ruse-Khan, R.M. Hilty, H.-G. Koch, D. Lefranc, D. Matthews, T. Mylly, A. Ohly, A. Peukert, M.R. Roudaut, J. Schmidt-Szalewski, A. Wechsler, G. Westkamp, P.K. Yu

This unique book provides an in-depth analysis of the different methods that have been proposed to protect traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) by using intellectual property rights.Intellectual Property and Traditional Cultural Expressions examines the possibility of protecting TCEs with copyright laws on the one hand, and ?origin related? intellectual property rights, such as trademarks, certification marks, geographical indications and laws against misrepresentation on the other. In particular, it examines which rights are conceptually best suited for the protection of TCEs, and appear more appropriate to meet the range of concerns raised by the holders of that knowledge and policymakers in culturally-rich developing countries.Providing a range of case studies, this book will prove a stimulating read for academics, practitioners, international organisations and policymakers. It will also greatly benefit law or political sciences postgraduate students with an interest in intellectual property and traditional knowledge, TCEs, and development.

Due to disagreement between policymakers and innovation economists, antitrust agencies have been rather confused over when and how to use competition law in reference to research and development (R&D) joint ventures and collaborations. This important book dissects the antitrust treatment, in the USA and under EU law, of joint R&D ventures from the 1970s to the present day. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the modifications and amendments made to legal acts and guidelines. It also looks at the slow shift in the scant case law detected both under the antitrust laws of the USA and the competition rules of the EU. Bjoern Lundqvist demonstrates that the prevailing antitrust policies towards R&D collaborations are very similar in the USA and the EU, and that they both mirror a lenient attitude towards collaboration between competitors. Nonetheless, ultimately, the book shows that a more stringent attitude from the antitrust establishment can be discerned, and that the concept of the innovation market could possibly soon have a revival. This fascinating book caters to both researchers and practitioners in competition law and economics. The easy-to-follow chart and boxes will be particularly useful for practitioners when setting up R&D joint ventures.

This book identifies and addresses the key principles and policies with regard to the protection of intellectual property in the United States. A select group of highly-regarded contributors illustrate several themes which are recurrent in the many debates concerning US law and policy on intellectual property. The need for a constant expansion of protectable subject matter is critically analyzed, especially in relation to trade mark and patent laws. The chapters within the book discuss a question of critical jurisprudential importance: have the legislature and the judiciary taken sufficient consideration of the different economic and constitutional rationales of intellectual property protection when extending the scope of intellectual property protection? A tentative agenda as to the future direction for both Congress and the courts to adopt, in light of the new technological changes which have affected all areas of intellectual property protection equally, is also suggested. Policymakers will find this book of great interest as will academics and students of intellectual property law and international law.

Succession, Wills and Probate is an ideal textbook for those taking an undergraduate course in this surprisingly vibrant subject, and also provides a clear and comprehensive introduction for professionals. Against an account of the main social and political themes of succession law, the book gives detailed explanations of core topics such as alternatives to wills and the making, altering and revocation of wills. It also explains personal representatives and how they should deal with a deceased person's estate and interpret and implement the will. Gifts may fail, estates may be insolvent or a person may die intestate, without a will at all. Increasingly relatives and others seek to challenge the will, for example on the grounds of the testator's capacity or under the law of family provision. This third edition is edited, updated and revised to take account of new legislation and case law across all the relevant issues, including a new final chapter dealing with the potentially contentious issues that are becoming more central to professional work in the field of succession.

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

The fields of intellectual property have broadened and deepened in so many ways that commentators struggle to keep up with the ceaseless rush of developments and hot topics. Kritika: Essays on Intellectual Property is a series that is designed to help authors escape this rush. It creates a forum for authors who wish to more deeply question, investigate and reflect upon the evolving themes and principles of the discipline. Bringing together leading experts in intellectual property, this fourth volume of Kritika tackles head on the most pressing legal issues that lie at the heart of the contemporary marketplace. The topics in this volume include the possible futures of IP; the challenges that the information age poses for rational code design and the protection of social interests; the changing purpose of unfair competition law; the Durkheimian basis for a more socially inclusive form of IP; the reality of IP on the legal streets of Brazil; the shortfalls of intellectual property as dominium and the issue of rights to machine-generated and automated data. With contributions from: Pedro Marcos Nunes Barbosa, Rochelle C. Dreyfuss, Severine Dusollier, Valeria Falce, Mark Findlay, Frake Hennine-Bodewig and Hans-Wolfgang Micklitz

Two of the objectives of the Chinese Copyright Law are to protect the copyright of authors to their literary and artistic works and encourage the creation and dissemination of works. In practice, however, in spite of the existence of the Music Copyright Society of China ('MCSC') that was established to assist with exercising copyright, music creators in China remain in need of help to protect and manage their fragmented copyright. The MCSC was the first collective management organisation ('CMO') in mainland China and is the only CMO in the field of musical works. While there is a large music industry and copyright business in China, the MCSC only had 11,356 members at the end of 2021. The third amendment of the Chinese Copyright Law was initiated in 2011 and came into effect in June 2021 after a long debate for almost ten years. The discussion of the third amendment has highlighted the controversial topic of collective management of copyright. This book explores the adequacy of the MCSC as an intermediary representing rights for music creators. The main argument developed in this study is that the work of the MCSC for individual composers and lyricists is hampered by shortcomings in the regulatory regime as well as by a lack of members' rights to participate in the management of their own rights and by the ineffective international cooperation between the MCSC and other musical CMOs overseas. The analysis is undertaken through a case study approach, comparing the collective management systems of music copyright in China, the United States and Australia and addressing the question of how musical CMOs operate in these countries. Specifically, three perspectives are examined: the regulatory systems designed to limit the misuse of those CMOs' monopoly, members' rights in the organisations, and international cooperation between these CMOs. Overall, the main findings of this book suggest that the MCSC in China could work more effectively to protect music creators' interests. In contrast, although the operational frameworks of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers ('ASCAP') and the Broadcasting Broadcast Music, Inc. ('BMI') in the United States and the Australasian Performing Right Association ('APRA') in Australia are not perfect models, the systems in these two countries may at least provide reference points for potential improvement of the regime of the MCSC. The research recommends three courses of action: strengthening the regulatory design overseeing the MCSC's monopoly, clarifying the relationship between the MCSC and its members while providing the members with the right to manage their own copyright, and improving the international cooperation between the MCSC and CMOs in other countries.