Framing Intellectual Property Law in the 21st Century: Integrating Incentives, Trade, Development, Culture, and Human Rights

Description

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.

Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss is the Pauline Newman Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and co-Director of its Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy. She is a member of the American Law Institute and was a co-Reporter for its Project on Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Judgments in Transnational Disputes. She was a consultant to the Federal Courts Study Committee, to the Presidential Commission on Catastrophic Nuclear Accidents, and to the Federal Trade Commission, and has served on the Secretary of Health and Human Services' Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health, and Society. Elizabeth Siew-Kuan Ng was the Vice-Chairwoman and Director of the Intellectual Property Unit of the EW Barker Centre for Law and Business, and associate professor of law at the National University of Singapore. She served as an Intellectual Property Adjudicator at the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore and as amicus curiae for the Supreme Court of Singapore. In her specialised area of patents, she was retained as a consultant by the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva to report on the impact of the patent regime on developing countries.

'This book critically examines traditional principles of intellectual property (IP) such as the incentive theory for justifying exclusivity and IP protection's linkage with trade and investment from new perspectives for the twenty-first century. Professor Dreyfuss and Professor Ng brought together global academic leaders to tackle on challenging topics: Whether IP is necessary? How human rights, culture and other significant values are incorporated in the current international IP norms? Both students and professionals will benefit from innovative analysis presented in each chapter.' Toshiko Takenaka, W. Hunter Simpson Professor of Technology Law, University of Washington 'A fresh and engaging re-assessment of first principles that underlie arguments for different levels of intellectual property (IP) protection. The book offers an array of disciplinary, doctrinal, and geographic perspectives, with a special focus on Singapore. Blending the global and the local, and high- and low-protectionist perspectives, the contributors thoughtfully reflect on the value of different frames for enriching and extending contemporary debates over IP rights.' Laurence R. Helfer, Harry R. Chadwick, Sr Professor of Law, Duke University, North Carolina 'In this book, a first-rate group of experts provide a sophisticated and candid analysis of the advantages and limitations of various justifications for intellectual property protection, including incentive-based theory, facilitating trade among nations, and protecting public health, culture, and human rights. The book also contains a valuable discussion of empirical studies and doctrinal and institutional reforms. It is essential reading for anyone interested in improving intellectual property laws in our global marketplace.' Lisa P. Ramsey, University of San Diego School of Law